Concentric AI Enhances Azure Security for Regulated Data
▼ Summary
– Concentric AI has expanded its Private Scan Manager to allow deployment within a customer’s private Microsoft Azure cloud, complementing existing AWS support.
– This deployment option is designed for highly regulated industries and government agencies that require sensitive data to remain on-premises for compliance.
– The solution enables organizations to use AI-driven data security governance, including categorization and risk remediation, without their raw data leaving their private environment.
– It reduces the need for organizations to provide their own significant computing and operational resources to run and maintain the security software.
– The platform uses patented AI to understand data context for accurate identification of sensitive information and provides automated risk monitoring and remediation.
Concentric AI has significantly broadened the capabilities of its Semantic Intelligence data security governance platform with an enhanced Private Scan Manager. This latest development allows customers to deploy the platform entirely within their own private Microsoft Azure cloud infrastructure. This move follows a similar expansion for AWS environments earlier this year, providing organizations with a critical choice for where to run their sensitive data security operations.
For many firms in highly regulated sectors like healthcare, finance, and government, strict compliance mandates require that sensitive data never leaves their on-premises control. Concentric AI’s new Private Scan Manager for Azure directly addresses this need. It enables these organizations to leverage advanced AI-driven data categorization and risk remediation without compromising their data residency requirements, ensuring they meet stringent regulatory standards.
“At a time when legacy players in the data security space are discontinuing support for on-prem deployments, this capability from Concentric AI is well-timed to meet the needs of a large portion of the market that requires their sensitive data to remain within their own environment,” noted Arthur Hedge, President of Castle Ventures Corporation.
This deployment model is particularly vital for U.S. government agencies, public sector bodies, and their contractors who utilize Microsoft 365 Government Community Cloud (GCC) High to manage Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI). It offers these entities a powerful tool for governance without forcing data into a public cloud.
The operational benefits are substantial. With this solution, all raw data scanning and analysis happens directly within the organization’s private Azure cloud. This eliminates the need for massive internal computing resources and frees IT teams from the burden of managing, maintaining, and upgrading on-premises security software. Organizations gain the sophisticated capabilities of a SaaS platform while keeping data processing entirely within their controlled environment.
“While other vendors are stepping away from on-prem deployments, Concentric AI remains focused on giving our customers choices,” said Dhruv Jhain, VP of Product at Concentric AI. He emphasized that this solution helps regulated industries—from hedge funds and hospitals to pharmaceutical firms and telecoms—achieve the operational efficiencies of cloud software while fully adhering to compliance mandates and alleviating internal data processing loads.
The core of this offering is the Semantic Intelligence platform, which functions as a comprehensive, end-to-end system for protecting enterprise data across all locations and movement vectors. This includes data stored in cloud or on-premises systems, data being transferred via email or file-sharing apps, and information flowing through various GenAI applications.
What sets the platform apart is its foundational technology. Rather than depending on simplistic rules or keyword matching, Semantic Intelligence employs patented AI to deeply understand the context of both structured and unstructured data. This allows it to accurately identify not only standard regulated data like PII, PCI, and PHI, but also more nuanced sensitive material such as intellectual property, merger documents, and strategic business plans that conventional tools often miss.
The outcome is a dramatic improvement in data classification accuracy and the enforcement of precise access policies, both within the platform and across a customer’s existing security tools. Its category-aware data loss prevention (DLP) capabilities guard against leaks through email and AI applications. Furthermore, the platform provides continuous risk monitoring and automated remediation for issues like excessive user permissions, risky data sharing, misclassified files, data in incorrect locations, and anomalous user behavior related to sensitive information.
(Source: HelpNet Security)
