Throughout history, humans have faced basic dilemmas. One of the biggest is the balance between freedom and safety: how much freedom we can have while staying safe, and how much safety we should accept without giving up our freedom.
This dilemma has permeated information technology. We recognize that the cornerstone of any modern business is the free movement of data across the internet and between trading partners, enabling faster services, growing revenue channels, and keeping the economy moving. But ever-present is the question of how we can protect the confidentiality of that data.
How can we guarantee that the level of security is appropriate for the type of data? And whether we meet the regulatory compliance obligations and elective standards that apply to it?
For technology vendors and their customers, there is a delicate balance to be navigated between innovation and responsibility.
For Axway, a company trusted with the secure data transfer, movement, and integration requirements of some of the world’s largest and most important organizations, data security is always our first priority and is central to what we do. Every day, our teams are challenged with the mission to balance the need for unhindered data exchange with maximum availability; the security of that data and the system moving it, and meeting the regulatory compliance obligations, standards, and mandates that our customers are subject to.
Security and compliance are moving targets
In the 25 years that I have worked in this industry, I have witnessed seven different shifts in software security. It is not unusual in IT for technology and the concepts that define it — which were once considered modern — to find themselves obsolete within five or even three years. As software evolves, so do the threats. As threats evolve, so do the regulations, and with it, the increasing requirement for protective controls and governance. It is a cycle where components move in sync, but the goals remain the same: to adopt sustainable progress and make it safe and secure for all good-faith participants.
The nature of IT security has always been a game of cat-and-mouse. It is about the technology that security protects, and it is about catching up with the malicious technology that is newer. As new technology is rolled out, the old ways of security start becoming increasingly inapplicable. A state-of-the-art system remains state-of-the-art only until the new technological shift, and technology needs to keep up with current advancements and foresee future challenges.
We saw that the first years of the internet brought a challenge of keeping data private on a network that is inherently public, leading to the creation of FTPS and SFTP. We saw this during the mass adoption of cloud technology and how the spread of cloud and hybrid architectures challenged the established security paradigm of non-permeable network boundaries.
We see the same process with AI (artificial intelligence) today. While AI may be the greatest technological enabler in a generation, it comes with natural security risks. Some of these risks stem from the usual external threats, like intentional malicious attacks. But with the onset of AI, we again must think about protecting not only against harmful external actors, but from internal, unintentional imperfections: manual human errors and the technology itself.
“Security in B2B means managing risk across a real-world partner ecosystem, where connections often rely on different protocols, standards, and configurations. While every connection should ideally follow the latest security standards, some business-critical partners may still require approaches that increase manual work or the risk of misconfiguration. That is why B2B security must combine modern technology, operational discipline, and automation to reduce human error without slowing the business down.”
— Stass Pertsovskiy, Director of Product and Solutions Marketing, Axway B2B
The solution is always watching after your own systems and how well they are secured from external threats or internal misuse. If your organization is running a legacy system, you are exposing yourself to malicious attacks. If your systems are unautomated, you are prone to human errors.
Both put you at a high risk of non-compliance.
See also: Why data security and regulatory compliance are moving targets that shift together
How regulatory compliance protects your industry
Despite how it may feel, regulatory compliance rules are not dreamt up by bored bureaucrats without there being an established need. They exist to raise the bar collectively. Often, compliance prescribes counterthreat measures that are already common or need to become more common to respond to a prevalent threat.
Organizations that don’t deal with regulated data are free to select the security measures that they see fit for their activity and their risks. Some organizations choose security measures to protect their intellectual property or to protect themselves from reputational risks.
Axway’s customers operate in mission-critical industries like supply chain management or financial services. The stakes are always high. These customers protect their intellectual property, they protect their customers, and they protect themselves from disruptions that immediately make the front pages all over the world.
Regulatory compliance in these industries ensures that industry participants adopt security measures that the industry requires to protect its critical mission. Often, these compliance measures are synonymous with security. For instance, the concept of open banking is a security measure against rudimentary and unsafe screen-scraping technologies. Regulations from industry and state actors associated with this concept prescribe safer and better ways to accomplish the same goal as the unsafe method. The proliferation of unsafe methods in an industry puts the entire industry at risk. Compliance makes it preventable.
Security and compliance are at the core of Axway
Data security and compliance are very closely tied to the ways we move, exchange, store, manipulate, and integrate data. Freedom of data and safety of data is a delicate balance, but it can’t be a relationship where one has to come at the expense of the other. With sufficient protection, we can ensure that information can reside and travel freely and safely with little to no compromises.
Axway serves enterprises in highly regulated industries with mission-critical processes. When we entered the IT industry in 2001, Axway’s initial market was in the financial services industry in France. Since then, we have used our expertise to grow into a core enabler of the global financial industry, now supporting over $700 trillion in financial transactions annually. We have expanded to other industries, powering manufacturing, global supply chains, the healthcare industry, and many other mission-critical industries. This kind of focus makes Axway, our customers, and the data they transfer natural targets for independent malicious actors and state-sponsored threats. As it started in 2001, it continues to this day: data security is not an add-on option for us. It’s in the core of Axway’s software.
After 25 years of supporting the operations of customers within highly regulated industries, we are proud to report that Axway software has a track record of zero breaches. This is not a coincidence: Axway’s Software Development Lifecycle includes attack surface analysis, dynamic application security testing (DAST), static application security testing (SAST), container security analysis, and manual penetration testing.
This is a testament to our commitment to the security of our systems.
Compliance is an opportunity
Security and compliance are two sides of the same coin: just as Axway is a security-first company, it is also a compliance-first company. We track industry and government regulations in all jurisdictions where our customers operate, and we build these requirements into our software to ensure adherence with regulatory frameworks and elective standards like PCI DSS, NIS-2, GDPR, and many others.
Audit-ready operational resilience, out of the box
Axway software ensures audit-ready operational resilience out of the box: built-in security measures are proactive with monitoring, detailed tracking, and activity logging. Automated security measures prevent manual errors, data is encrypted at rest and in transit, and role-based access controls limit exposure.
We treat regulatory compliance not as a disruptive mandate, but as an opportunity for our customers to use modern software and provide better goods and services to their customers. Restrictions like regulatory compliance make us adopt safe practices and spur the creative thinking that advances us forward.
A lot of regulatory compliance today defines security measures that guard organizations from business-ending financial and reputational risks, so they can focus on scalability and growth. Other common forms of compliance prescribe automation that replaces error-prone manual labor, allowing you to direct human talent to high-value tasks and improve operational efficiency. Some regulations unlock the power of data that can move freely and enable new technology like AI-enabled ecosystems.
In good company with Axway
No matter the kind of data security you need or regulatory compliance obligations you need to meet, Axway’s 25 years of security-first/compliance-first approach will help.
Security and compliance are not afterthoughts for Axway and you should follow suit. Technological advancements in software have picked up pace over the last few years and are not slowing down. Patching up legacy systems with reactive security fixes can be a choice. But in a fast-changing environment, this is the choice that comes with high risks and anxieties.
You have a different choice.
Axway exists for customers who want their data security to be proactive and their regulatory compliance to be automated. We help organizations stay compliant with regulations in every jurisdiction in which they operate. No matter what your goals are — whether you modernize your legacy systems, expand to a new regulatory environment, or prepare for the era of agentic AI — Axway is ready to provide you with protection, control, and agility to lead.
Want to learn more about how Axway ensures proactive data security and compliance?