Adaptive - Data Security Platform

Our primary use case for Adaptive Data Security Platform was to discover and secure sensitive data across our cloud environments. We wanted a centralized platform that could discover and classify sensitive information and enforce consistent security policies. This gave us visibility into where regulated data was being stored and accessed. In our initial deployment, we integrated it with our AWS and Azure environments' object storage and managed databases. We also use SaaS applications. The platform helps us identify the data containing PII and financial information, apply appropriate protection rules, and monitor activity. Another important use case was supporting compliance with our regular auditing. We used the platform's reporting capabilities to help our security and compliance teams understand where sensitive data existed and whether it was being handled according to our internal security policies.

One thing that stands out is how we used Adaptive Data Security Platform when our business unit migrated several customer-facing applications from on-premise to AWS. As part of the migration, we were creating new S3 buckets, RDS databases, and data pipelines almost every week. This made it difficult to maintain visibility into where the sensitive customer data was ending up. We used the data security platform to discover and classify the data across these environments. We configured policies to identify things like personal identifiable information and financial records and then mapped the data back to the application owners. In one use case, the platform identified a staging development S3 bucket containing production customer data that had been copied over for testing. We were doing a POC, and access permissions were not correct. The platform flagged this, scheduled a scan, and sent an alert to our SOC team and a notification through the SIEM integration. From there, we worked with the application team to remove the sensitive data, restrict IAM permissions, enable stronger encryption controls, and automate the deployment pipeline so that in the future, the environment could not be provisioned without required security policies. On a day-to-day basis, my responsibility is to review new findings, validate whether they were genuine issues or false positives, and tune the classification policies. This workflow significantly reduced the amount of manual audit we had to perform for these issues and gave us better visibility into how sensitive data was being handled across our cloud environments.

Besides the data discovery and classification, we have used a few other important ways to leverage Adaptive Data Security Platform. We have also integrated it with our SIEM and incident response workflows. Security events and findings were also forwarded to our SOC teams, allowing the analysts to investigate potential issues without manual checking. We use the platform to monitor changes over time. As new applications and cloud resources were deployed, we could quickly identify newly discovered sensitive data and verify that it was protected according to our standards, and work with the application teams to remediate gaps before it became a larger security issue.

For the best features of Adaptive Data Security Platform, I would say three features that delivered the most value for us were the data discovery and classification, centralized data policy management, and the visibility the platform provided across our cloud environment. First was the automated discovery and classification. Instead of manually identifying where sensitive data was stored, the platform continuously scanned our cloud resources and classified data such as customer information and financial details. That saved a lot of manual effort and helped us identify risks much earlier. Second, I would definitely say centralized policy management. We could define security policies once and the platform consistently monitored them across multiple environments. That made governance much easier, especially as different application teams were deploying new workloads in AWS and Azure. The third feature I would say was reporting and visibility. The dashboards gave us a clear picture of where sensitive data existed and what the current risk posture looked like, and what the findings were that required immediate attention. That was very valuable, not only for the security team but also for the compliance and auditing purposes. I also valued the integration capabilities and being able to integrate with our identity provider and cloud services. That meant we could fit the platform into our existing security operations instead of creating another isolated tool.

Adaptive Data Security Platform has impacted our organization positively in several areas. From a security perspective, the biggest improvement was visibility. Before implementing the platform, it was difficult to know exactly where sensitive data was stored across multiple cloud environments. With the continuous data discovery and classification, we had a much clearer understanding of our data landscape and could identify risks much earlier. From a compliance standpoint, it has reduced the amount of manual effort during audits. Instead of collecting information from multiple systems and engineering teams, we could generate reports showing where sensitive data existed, how it is classified, and what security controls were in place. This made audit preparation much easier and faster. Operationally, it improved our efficiency because security teams could prioritize high-risk findings instead of reviewing everything manually. We integrated the alerts into our workflow. Issues were assigned to the appropriate teams. This has reduced the average remediation time. Overall, Adaptive Data Security Platform has helped us move from a reactive approach to a proactive approach, from finding issues during audits or after deployments to a much more proactive model where we identified and addressed data security risks much earlier in the application lifecycle.

Adaptive Data Security Platform is quite strong overall, but there are a few areas where I have seen improvement. The first thing would be the user interface. There is a lot of information, which is great, but for new administrators, there is definitely a learning curve. A more intuitive layout would make navigation and finding policies and remediation easier and would improve the overall progress. The second thing would be reporting customization. The built-in reports cover most of our needs, but there were a few times we wanted more flexibility. We are using Power BI dashboards to create highly customized dashboards for different stakeholders. I would also like to see more automation around remediation. The platform does a very good job in identifying risks, but additional built-in workflows that could automatically trigger a remediation action or integrate with infrastructure-as-code pipelines would reduce the manual effort even further. As our cloud footprint has continued to grow, we have occasionally noticed longer scans for larger environments. Improvements in scanning performance would definitely help stabilize organizations who are managing thousands of cloud resources, especially when we have to do it on a higher scale. None of these things were really a deal-breaker for us. They are more enhancements rather than a lack of capability, where the application could become even more efficient for larger deployments.

I have been working with Adaptive Data Security Platform for a little over two to three years.

Adaptive Data Security Platform is very much stable in our organization. Once we completed the initial deployment and policy tuning, we found it to be very reliable on day-to-day operations. It handled continuous discovery, scheduled scans, and policy enforcement consistently without looking for any ongoing maintenance. Like any other enterprise application, we did encounter a few initial issues during the major version upgrades or when onboarding a larger new environment. For example, the initial scans of very large cloud accounts took longer than expected. These were just implementation and optimization challenges rather than stability issues. From an operational standpoint, the platform has been a really great asset. We did not experience any outages or negative impacts on our security operations, and it became a dependent part of our security stack. I would describe this as very stable and very good for an enterprise level.

The scalability of Adaptive Data Security Platform is really good.

When it comes to customer support for Adaptive Data Security Platform, the customer support is really good. From the support standpoint, the response was generally good. The frontline support engineers were knowledgeable. They were able to help us with configuration questions, deployment guidance, and troubleshooting when we encountered them during onboarding the application. For complex issues, the case sometimes needs to be escalated. We would need someone from the product engineering or solution engineering to take a look into the product. However, when the issue was escalated, we usually received detailed technical guidance with regular updates until it was resolved. I also appreciate the product engineering team's ownership, wherein they have been really open. We had one instance wherein we were working with the team on Zoom for almost an hour and a half and the team was providing suggestions on the reporting dashboard and enhancements. That is how we did the feedback. They are taking the ideas and we are discussing how these issues could be incorporated into future releases, and they have promised on that. Overall, the experience was very positive.

We did not previously use a different solution.

The time spent in collecting evidence and compliance reviews dropped from sixty to seventy percent because the application was automatically maintaining all the inventories. Another benefit was faster remediation. By integrating findings with the existing SOC workflow, high-priority issues were quickly assigned within the same business day instead of sitting in the queue for several days or ending up in the backlog. We did not reduce any size of the security team, but we were able to respond or act much faster on a larger cloud environment without needing to add more dedicated staff. Instead of spending time on manual and repetitive work, the team could focus on higher-value tasks such as risk assessments or security architecture, improving overall security posture.

Regarding the return on investment with Adaptive Data Security Platform, although we think of it more in terms of operational efficiency and risk reduction than direct dollars saved, one of the biggest gains was in audit preparation. The time spent in collecting evidence and compliance reviews dropped from sixty to seventy percent because the application was automatically maintaining all the inventories. Another benefit was faster remediation. By integrating findings with the existing SOC workflow, high-priority issues were quickly assigned within the same business day instead of sitting in the queue for several days or ending up in the backlog. We did not reduce any size of the security team, but we were able to respond or act much faster on a larger cloud environment without needing to add more dedicated staff. Instead of spending time on manual and repetitive work, the team could focus on higher-value tasks such as risk assessments or security architecture, improving overall security posture.

Regarding pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Adaptive Data Security Platform, overall, I think the pricing was pretty reasonable for an enterprise platform, especially considering the security and compliance value it was providing. It is certainly not a low-cost solution, but for an organization handling sensitive and regulated data, we felt the investment was justified. The initial setup cost was mainly related to the implementation rather than licensing. This meant the time and effort in integrating the platform with our cloud environments, identity provider, SIEM, and onboarding different business units. Once that work was completed, the ongoing effort was fairly manageable. From a licensing perspective, it was pretty straightforward to manage. Although our cloud footprint has had a lot of dynamic and monitored data sources, we need a plan for capacity and licensing in our roadmap. That is something I would recommend for the organizations considering the platform. In the planning phase, there are no surprises as the deployment expands. Overall, I would say the total cost of ownership was acceptable by our organization because it has reduced potential fines and streamlined compliance activities and improved our overall data security posture, which provided a good return on investment.

We have evaluated a few other alternative platforms for Adaptive Data Security Platform to make an informed decision. We evaluated a few other cloud-native data security offerings as well, and a few enterprise data security platforms. We considered staying with our existing manual approach, but our evaluation has focused on a few key criteria, such as the accuracy of sensitive data discovery and classification on hybrid environments, the ease of integration with our existing identity and security tools, reporting capabilities of compliance, and scalability. Overall, the operational effort of managing the platform. In the end, we chose the data security platform because it provided the best balance of centralized visibility, policy management, and integration capabilities for our environment. The platform has better alignment with our requirements with less custom development effort and fits into our existing security operations.

My advice regarding Adaptive Data Security Platform would be to start with a clear understanding of what you are trying to protect. Before deploying the platform, take the time to identify your critical data assets, define your classification policies, and agree on the security policies beforehand. I would also suggest starting with a pilot deployment rather than onboarding an entire environment at once. That gives an opportunity to validate the classifications, fine-tune the policies, and understand the application's overall behavior before rolling it out onto the production. Another piece of advice that I would give is to involve your compliance, infrastructure, and DevOps teams. Getting their input on fine-tuning the policies will be very valuable. Tailoring the policies, alerts, and automation will also be much more effective. I would rate my overall experience with Adaptive Data Security Platform as a nine out of ten.

Hybrid Cloud

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Adaptive Data Security Platform is used primarily for Dynamic Data Masking, redaction, and Context-Aware Access Governance. A specific example of how Dynamic Data Masking and redaction are used for access governance in day-to-day work involves modifying and hiding sensitive customer data, such as financial records. Context-Aware Access Governance is applied by enforcing a zero trust model instead of granting permanent all-or-nothing privileges.

Some of the best features Adaptive Data Security Platform offers include automated sensitive data discovery, which relies on machine learning to automate crawling of unstructured repositories and map and classify data assets. Automated Sensitive Data Discovery and mapping have greatly helped by structuring unstructured repositories and data.

Additionally, a behavioral anomaly detection feature is greatly used in most financial customers. Adaptive Data Security Platform has positively impacted the organization by enabling dynamic elevation of friction instead of completely blocking a user, which might disrupt operations.

Adaptive Data Security Platform has greatly saved time and improved compliance, also helping to gain trust from customers.

Adaptive Data Security Platform can improve by enhancing their AI-native classification engines and administrative AI assistant to help analysts triage alerts. They can also harden their internal AI pipeline with deterministic verification layers.

Adaptive Data Security Platform has been used for around two years.

Adaptive Data Security Platform is quite stable at the moment.

Scalability is quite good; the organization has managed to expand, and Adaptive Data Security Platform has greatly helped with that.

Customer support is very awesome. I would rate the customer support a nine.

A lot of time has been saved with Adaptive Data Security Platform and redundancy has also been reduced, so time and money have been saved.

Pricing for Adaptive Data Security Platform was quite fair, and the setup cost was good because the customer support team was really helpful.

Before choosing Adaptive Data Security Platform, it came out on top compared to other options.

My advice to others looking into using Adaptive Data Security Platform is that they should get on the product as soon as possible, as this is an awesome product. The overall review rating for this product is seven.

On-premises

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Adaptive Data Security Platform is used for testing possible infrastructure security.

Adaptive Data Security Platform has only been running in test environments to evaluate products.

Adaptive Data Security Platform is currently being tested in a private sandbox.

Adaptive Data Security Platform has not yet impacted the organization positively because it has not been implemented.

The best features Adaptive Data Security Platform offers include real-time monitoring and AI-driven capabilities, which stand out.

The real-time monitoring and AI-driven features of Adaptive Data Security Platform are interesting to see in test environments, especially the predicted analytics for being proactive.

Improvements in AI analytics and proactive security are hoped for once Adaptive Data Security Platform is fully implemented.

Adaptive Data Security Platform has not been used for very long.

Adaptive Data Security Platform is stable in the test environment so far, with no issues with reliability.

The scalability of Adaptive Data Security Platform seems pretty scalable from what has been seen so far, which is promising.

There has been no need to reach out to customer support for Adaptive Data Security Platform yet.

A different solution for infrastructure security testing was not previously used.

A return on investment has not yet been seen with Adaptive Data Security Platform because it is unclear if it will even be used; it is still a very early phase.

There are no thoughts on pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Adaptive Data Security Platform because the IT team handles that.

Other options have not been evaluated before choosing Adaptive Data Security Platform.

Adaptive Data Security Platform is rated seven out of ten.

A seven rating was chosen for Adaptive Data Security Platform because it seems promising for the use cases, but it has not been used enough to know all the features.

The advice to others looking into using Adaptive Data Security Platform is to test it out in a sandbox to make sure it meets their use case.

The company does not have a business relationship with the vendor of Adaptive Data Security Platform other than being a customer.

An incentive was offered for this review of Adaptive Data Security Platform.

There are no additional thoughts about Adaptive Data Security Platform at this time.

Private Cloud

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

What do you like best about the product?

We rolled out their full LMS, Admissions and School Management software once the pandemic hit. It was essential to continue via online learning and the upgrade has had an enormous impact on the way in which we work and vastly improved productivity. The system handles attendance records, health reports and sick notes, grading, course libraries and reading materials, as well as online classes and document management. The best parts: I'd say ease of use and excellent document management - creating unlimited folders, tagging files and videos for fast search and a fast back-end.

The entire admissions and registrar functions also work more smoothly. Teachers, students and parents have their own portals, and everyone is very happy with the system. It is easy to manage and use, and the initial setup and training were also excellent.

What do you dislike about the product?

It does not automatically integrate with Microsoft Office so we need to create training material offline and upload but this causes no issues and no difference is overall workoad.

What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?

We are more confident in delivering quality education, regardless of any future pandemic, and have reduced our administrative time. We also receive the required data at the right time, which helps us run the school more effectively and hone in on potential issues sooner. But these are not the only benefits.

We gain invaluable feedback from students, parents and teachers through Adaptive's surveys and private social media forums. These forums have been a huge hit.

What do you like best about the product?

We implemented their ERP system. My role is finance and budgeting. It's useful that ledgers are listed by Codes as well A-Z for assistants. We customise chart of accounts, assign income/expenses to Purchase Orders/Projects, view trial balances and ageing reports. Multi-year operating budgets are also useful for project planning. We look forward to their next release which will link payments with ledgers and automatically update entries.

What do you dislike about the product?

I would have liked to see Bank Reconcilliation and updating accounts based on payments. Both will be coming in their next release.

What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?

Tracking and managing daily activities is much easier. Automation saves time. Now there is easy reporting and it's far quicker to spot errors.

What do you like best about the product?

Private social media is very good to share ideas but also to complain without showing our name. We use it on the site to share files and RFIs. It also has messaging to contact all people on a project.

What do you dislike about the product?

Underground sometimes we have no signal so we can't use it till we get to ground floor but that's not their fault.

What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?

It lets all the team communicate with less complication and misunderstanding. We see updated data and RFIs are excellent as it groups topics.

What do you like best about the product?

My focus is procurement. I needed a solid tool for contract management, supply chain, invoicing and inventory management.
The software works very efficiently. Menus are intuitive and my workflows are now more efficient. All note threads are stored and easily accessible with full histories stored.

What do you dislike about the product?

There is no full procurement tool yet to issue RFPs but this is being introduced shortly.

What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?

Very happy with the software. It's a solid ERP system with an abundance of functionality and Adaptive genuinely seem to care about our needs. We were particularly pleased in the way they handled set-up, checking that the software matches our business processes.

What do you like best about the product?

It's easy to use in the field and gets the job done. RFIs save us a lot of time. File sharing is really good for documents, images and recordings.

What do you dislike about the product?

Remote sites/deep underground without internet might mean getting to the ground floor for a signal.

What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?

Coordinating teams, RFIs, Document Management and File Sharing - Reducing inconsistencies and wasting time. The software has definitely helped the bottom line.

What do you like best about the product?

Adaptive has enabled us to streamline Project Management. The right data is available at the right time. File sharing is excellent whether with teams, stakeholders or clients. Task reviews and discussions are all handled within the software. I'm also impressed by the multiple security features. Budgeting at the project or task level is also useful, as is showing slippage.

What do you dislike about the product?

There is no BIM functionality or technical drawing included.

What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?

Better organisation and much more efficient project management, saving considerable time overall. Real-time data means being made aware of issues sooner. Previously we handled RFIs through email, which was inefficient as emails could not be grouped or signed off. Now RFIs are managed very well. Perhaps the best feature is document management and search - sharing files with any team or company related to a project and search let's you find files instantly.

What do you like best about the product?

As a surveyor I need to organise workflows methodically and have rapid access to one of thousands of files, as well as versioning and local backup. Adaptive offers all of this. I create unlimited folders and sub-folders, add tags and search by folder or tag. I can be as granular as needed - creating folders per Site/BIM/Regulation. Assigning single files or entire folders to external suppliers/contractors is simple and instant. Errors can be undone instantly, unlike email. Workflow efficiency improved with RFIs as they group topics together and provide status. Their messaging module is very well thought out - it's more efficient than Microsoft Outlook! We save time clearing out sent items. The social media feature is also pretty cool for sharing ideas internally or posting grievances anonymously. Net-net this is a serious piece of software. Ask them for a demo.

What do you dislike about the product?

There is no free trial, but we understood why once we went through their implementation process. They take time to match their software to our business flows

What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?

Improves organisational efficiency, document management, project management and collaboration with all data encrypted.