ServiceNow Security and Integrations

ServiceNow is a valuable source of data and insight for many of its users, so organizations must take ServiceNow security seriously.

Enterprise security is a serious concern for all organizations working with data, especially as they embrace third-party systems for scaling operations, expanding services, and boosting revenue.

Naturally, ServiceNow clients expect strong security measures to protect their sensitive data and integrations. 

ServiceNow Security

ServiceNow provides a trusted infrastructure to keep your data within the platform secure. 

The platform’s security infrastructure includes multiple layers of logical and physical security and response services working 24x7x365. 

ServiceNow security features and  include:

• Secure access – granular context-aware policies and single sign-on multi-factor authentication secure your ServiceNow instances
• Simple Regulatory Compliance – built-in audit trail to simplify regulatory compliance 
• “Best-of-breed” integrations – deep integration with top security solutions and third-party tools to re-enforce security
• Security Analytics – Continuous network monitoring and proactive threat detection for your ServiceNow cloud instances

However, while ServiceNow takes their platform’s security very seriously, some integration methods can expose your organization to risk.

ServiceNow Privacy 

Privacy is a major concern for data-driven enterprises. They must consider solutions that let them monitor how the data flows through multiple apps/systems to identify data containing personally identifiable information, and remove it when necessary.

ServiceNow’s privacy policy ensures that clients’ sensitive data remains protected – it empowers users by giving them direct control over their data. It adheres to industry standards for data protection, including GDPR and other privacy regulations. Customer data is never used for ads or sold to third parties. 

• A set of trust principles guides the Now platform’s security requirements, maintaining customer-brand transparency. 
• As data collection and processing policies evolve, ServiceNow also updates and communicates its data processing and security terms to the Now community.
• ServiceNow clients get 360-degree visibility into how, when, and where their data is used. They remain aware of the tools and features used to maintain access without compromising compliance norms.

Types of Integration and Security Concerns

When choosing a method of integration for ServiceNow, security must factor into your decision-making process. Not all integration methods are made equal, and not all integration providers take security as seriously as ServiceNow. 

Here’s what you need to know about ServiceNow integration options, to prevent exposing your organization to risk:

1. DIY Integrations 

When data volumes are low, organizations sometimes choose to build their own ServiceNow integrations as a cheaper solution – albeit with hidden costs. 

In this approach, an in-house developer or development team builds and implements the integration. They must maintain it through new versions of ServiceNow, as any update to the ServiceNow platform may require an update to the integration.

Also, while it’s a best practice to do so, DIY integrations are often undocumented, or under-documented. This exposes an organization to risk if the employee responsible for maintaining it moves on. Without an understanding of the integration’s architecture, it becomes more difficult to address vulnerabilities. This dynamic can quickly lead to escalating and costly technical debt (also known as integration debt).

Additionally, depending on how the integration is built, data extracted from ServiceNow may not be encrypted in transit. 

And as they are difficult to manage, maintain and implement, custom-built integrations often rely on a number of manual data replication processes and workarounds to facilitate the integration. Such workarounds – log-in credential sharing for example – are another factor that introduces greater risk. 

2. Swivel-Chair Integrations

Another manual integration approach is where developers ‘swivel’ between applications and manually copy, extract and replicate data to the target system. Enterprises may use the swivel-chair approach for small-scale integrations as it is a low-cost solution – at least initially … 

It does not involve automation and hence, is a bad practice because manual processes expose your data to possible security risks in transit. They may also encourage bad practices such as sharing credentials for data replication or project collaboration. 

3. ETL Tools 

Extract, Transform, and Load (ETL) tools facilitate data transfer between data repositories. This dated data integration approach is ideal for scenarios where security or application business rules don’t apply or when the data isn’t time-sensitive. 

• See also: Why Your ETL Tool is Broken

While ETL tools let you stay behind a firewall, they often lead to data governance complications due to the siloed process. You may even lose data in transit while managing multiple integration points and access controls. 

3. Integration Platform-as-a-Service (iPaaS)

iPaaS solutions deliver a platform for integrations, not the integration (and subsequent maintenance of it) itself.

Therefore, in this instance, an organizations data security is in their own hands. An organization opting for this method must be confident that they have the development resources to maintain the integration and its security over-time. Additionally, iPaaS solutions aren’t guaranteed to encrypt data in-transit.

4. Integration Providers

ServiceNow is often a business-critical application at the heart of organizations, and so integrations often facilitate business critical processes. Therefore, working with a trusted, integration provider with demonstrable expertise is the best way to keep your integrations secure.

However, not all integration providers are made equal, and so you should evaluate whether the integration provider addresses your needs – security and otherwise. 

For example, does the integration provider you’re evaluating encrypt data at-rest and in-transit? Does the method of integration leverage API calls that could slow down ServiceNow’s performance when processing large data volumes?

If an organization doesn’t require large-scale data replication, then an API-driven integration from a trusted provider may suffice. The organization will need to be diligent in reviewing the provider’s security protocols and policies.

However, if an organization is replicating large amounts of data, then the organization should consider Perspectium …

Perspectium – The ServiceNow-trusted Integration Provider

Perspectium delivers Integration as a Service via its DataSync and ServiceBond solutions through a ServiceNow native application. It supports multiple encryption methods for data both at-rest and in-transit.

As a ServiceNow native application and trusted partner of the ITSM provider, Perspectium customers have an integration service aligned with ServiceNow’s security standards. 

Organizations evaluating Perspectium can be further reassured by the fact that ServiceNow are Perspectium customers, as well as partners. ServiceNow uses Perspectium’s services to integrate their CRM data from multiple production applications into their big data environment.

• See also: How ServiceNow Integrates and Replicates Their Business Data Using Perspectium

Perspectium’s IaaS solution integrates different technologies via the cloud, allowing for near real-time data flow between apps. 

Perpectium delivers and fully maintains its IaaS servers and a web-based interface for end users. It lets ServiceNow users synchronize multiple tools and applications and manage several applications simultaneously without switching between apps or manually extracting data from one system to another. In other words, Perspectium breaks down organizational silos.

The data flows through different systems and instances, fully encrypted and secure. So, users can readily access and use their data per their needs. 

Since Perspectium fully manages and maintains all integrations, organizations need not carry the security burden, in-house.

With Perspectium, enterprises can enjoy a rich customer experience promising higher agility, availability, and scalability. 

Strengthen ServiceNow Security With Perspectium

For companies opting for data integration to gain a competitive edge, it’s imperative to strengthen data privacy and security within their ITSM ecosystem and external systems.

Data and systems integration is a complex, time-consuming, and expensive process, particularly with the increasing adoption of hybrid IT architectures that demand internal data center systems integration with cloud platforms. This is often overwhelming for in-house IT resources. 

In such a scenario, an integration solution like Perspectium can synchronize all your systems and data securely without compromising data integrity. It allows data to flow to the right sources at the right time, enhancing your company’s analytics and knowledge management. 

Perspectium connects ServiceNow to common database systems and also creates a data backup for disaster recovery. Its inbuilt data obfuscation capabilities ensure that PII information isn’t shared unintentionally. It guarantees complete security of your integrations since the user owns the data encryption keys.

All replication is architected to deliver secure data movement through a message broker architecture without sacrificing ServiceNow performance.  

Unlike other applications, you control Perspectium inside ServiceNow before pushing the data to the message broker system, queuing it into the repository. We then securely replicate your ServiceNow data by pulling it from the queue into database systems for warehousing and analytics.