What is GDPR?
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a comprehensive data privacy regulation that protects the personal data of individuals within the European Union and the European Economic Area. It gives individuals greater control over how their information is collected, processed, and stored.
GDPR applies to any organization that processes the personal data of EU residents, regardless of where that organization is located. It is built on seven principles: lawfulness, fairness and transparency, purpose limitation, data minimization, accuracy, storage limitation, integrity and confidentiality, and accountability.
While many parts of the regulation focus on legal requirements and user rights, several articles impose technical obligations. These include building data protection into infrastructure design, limiting access, monitoring enforcement, and conducting risk assessments before launching high-risk systems.
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GDPR Requirements
Several GDPR articles define clear technical requirements that apply to network infrastructure and access control. Tufin provides the capabilities to implement and enforce these requirements at the network level.
Article 25: Data Protection by Design and by Default
Organizations must implement technical and organizational measures to ensure data protection is embedded into systems and processes. This includes network segmentation, least-privilege access, and clear boundaries around data-processing environments.
Article 32: Security of Processing
Security controls must protect the confidentiality, integrity, and resilience of systems. These controls include access restrictions, secure protocols, and mechanisms that prevent unauthorized data exposure or modification.
Article 30: Records of Processing Activities
Organizations must maintain accurate and complete documentation of their processing activities. This includes a description of the security measures in place and how they are maintained over time.
Article 35: Data Protection Impact Assessments (DPIAs)
For processing activities that present a high risk to individuals, organizations must evaluate and document the risk before proceeding. DPIAs must describe the technical controls used to reduce exposure and must be based on real network conditions.
Tufin and GDPR Compliance
With Tufin, you can apply GDPR security principles directly to your network. You can define which network assets hold or process personal data, define how those assets connect, and validate access controls are enforced continuously.
Define and enforce segmentation for systems that process personal data
You can also map your network and create zones for systems that store or process personal data. Tufin provides real-time visibility into permitted access paths, as well as network asset relationships and dependencies. You can then apply segmentation rules and risk criticality labels using the Unified Security Policy. These rules restrict access into and out of personal data zones based on business need. Tufin monitors your firewall and cloud access policies to flag any rule that violates your Unified Security Policy. You can also identify and remove unnecessary or overly permissive rules to reduce exposure.
This helps you implement and maintain data protection by design at the infrastructure layer.
Control changes and enforce secure processing
Tufin helps your organization implement secure change management practices across your network. You can simulate a proposed access change before it is made and review its impact on your security policy. If the request introduces overly permissive access or violates policy, it is flagged for further review.
All policy changes are tracked automatically and stored in an audit trail that includes who made the change, when it occurred, and what was changed. You can also configure policies that require the use of encrypted protocols for data in transit between systems.
These controls help you maintain compliant access controls for systems that hold or process personal data.
Maintain documentation and assess risk before changes are made
Tufin records every change to your security policy across all devices and platforms. This gives you a complete history of configured access controls and demonstrates how those controls evolve over time.
When preparing a data protection impact assessment, you can simulate how a new application or service would connect across the network. This allows you to evaluate potential exposure and correct risky configurations before deployment. High risk changes can be flagged for more rigorous scrutiny, while low risk requests can be streamlined.
These capabilities help your organization adopt a structured approach to risk assessments, and maintain effective security controls over time.
Maintain a continuous state of audit readiness
Tufin helps you demonstrate GDPR compliance at any point in time. You can generate reports, show enforcement history, and document technical controls with precision.
