Well, cybersecurity has certainly been in the news lately, with the global IT outage. The topic is also on our minds at Intellegens, because we’ve been working through the mechanics of our ISO 27001 certification. This is the international standard for information security.
In our world of machine learning for R&D, you can think of the technology we provide as a 3-legged stool. Information security is the unglamorous third leg but, unless you want to perform a precarious balancing act, it is vital. Yet we rarely give it much attention. This month’s blog aims to fix that!
The first leg on the Intellegens stool is our machine learning science, which enables us to solve problems with difficult, complex data, where other methods fail. That’s the exciting stuff.
The second leg is the experience we deliver to users of our software, derived from a deep understanding of how it needs to be used, and created through close attention to the design of the user interface, the supporting analysis tools, and the services that we offer. That’s the beautiful stuff.
These two legs are, understandably, what we love to talk about. But without the third leg – the robust architecture, culture, and security policies that ensure our customers can trust us to keep their data safe – the whole thing will fall flat. That’s the less exciting, but essential, stuff.
At Intellegens, we’ve always focused on and invested in this area, just as we do on the exciting science and beautiful user experience. There are several ways to implement our Alchemite™ software. Typically, these involve Alchemite™ being deployed through the cloud, providing advanced encryption, continuous monitoring, and comprehensive compliance with global standards. Whichever option users choose, they apply the software to build and apply machine learning models themselves, so that Intellegens staff never get to see any of their data, unless it is explicitly shared with us as part of a consultancy project. Where that happens, a wider approach to information security kicks in – a focus on risk management, policies, procedures, and training of staff which anyone working in a corporate R&D environment will recognise. These are also the elements that allow the organisation to respond effectively in the event of a technology issue, such as the recent global cybersecurity outage. It is these systems and human elements that we’re currently auditing and validating so that they can be certified and monitored through the ISO 27001 process.
So we’re very confident in our third leg. If you’re sitting alongside us, working on a machine learning project, you can feel secure. We won’t talk about this topic all that much because (with apologies to our excellent information security team) it’s, well… a little unexciting. But we’re always focused on information security and, with our ISO certification in place, we’ll always be able to talk you through the detail if you need it.
In our next blog, we’ll get back to the exciting and beautiful stuff.
