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The average cost of a data breach in 2021 is $4.24 million
Domino is intrinsically rock-solid, with built-in, powerful security that comes right out of the box, while Exchange's security is known colloquially as “Swiss cheese.” Domino adapts to the simplest or most complex security needs of any organization. This level of security is where Domino really shines and gives Microsoft a run for its money. Here are the main differences between the two platforms — which should make it eminently clear which one you should go with.
An organization’s success and reputation are made or ruined depending on whether it keeps its data safe. It seems like every week there’s a news story about Microsoft getting hacked and causing mayhem (shutting down the gas supply for the entire East Cost of the United States, hacking diplomats, and more).
HCL Domino is a proven application-development platform that allows business users and professional IT developers to create and automate business solutions and processes for more than 30 years. And the latest version is web- and mobile-ready, has low-code capabilities and is cloud-native. Domino and Notes together are a highly secure, mail-enabled, multi-platform, open, client/server, database management, and app-dev platform. Domino is one thing that does it all. It’s a database server, app middleware, a web server, your CRM, your mail server, your repository, and your archive. There are thousands of global customers running millions of apps — and Domino powers 40% of the Fortune 500. And mail with Domino isn’t just email — it’s contact management, workflow, and business automation.
Domino is the best platform on which to run your business — that is, if you care about the security of your data, your enterprise, and your customers and partners. With Domino, you can power the apps that run your business safe from an external attack or data breach.
If You Care About Security, You Need to Be on Domino
(Not Microsoft)
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Domino Does Not Get Hacked. Ever.
Domino adapts to the simplest or most complex security needs of any organization.
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Domino allows you to encrypt all end-point communications — server to server, workstation to server, browser to server, mobile device to server, and SMTP/LDAP/IMAP/POP traffic — regardless of the client type or protocol in use. The encryption of network traffic is supported and easy to configure. All of this makes it extremely difficult to intercept any data in transit. Domino allows the issue of database encryption keys, which provides a level of protection that means even administrators can’t decrypt data. In Exchange, any admin can access corporate secrets, management plans, or mailboxes, because everything is just an access control configuration.
Encryption and Unique IDs
With Domino, your local data is also encrypted. Local object encryption means zero trust of local storage — and no local file or back-door access. The platform requires the Notes/Domino interface/API and the use of respective keys — and every ID is a unique identity with both a public and private key. This means your data won’t be stolen or ransomed. With Exchange, an identity is just a unique string. Certificates and additional security can be added on later, but it isn’t core to the platform and doesn’t come included out of the box.
Domino stores your mail in separate mail file objects. Email storage is segregated per user, meaning documents are not stored in a shared container which reduces exposure and risk. Also, documents can be authenticated against the sender and be easily encrypted by the sender or by the Domino server at delivery time, providing message integrity and storage security. This means that with Domino you can limit access to data to certain people in your organization. Exchange doesn’t have database-access control on its mail data storage.
Secure Messaging
Your organization’s executives should have many security concerns and priorities. One of the key ones is keeping information available (no downtime) and safe, while ensuring smooth business operations. This means the security settings applied in one location must be maintained in all locations that hold the same data. Domino achieves this by replicating the access control lists along with the data. So, wherever the organization decides to place their data, the security rules associated with it follow. With Domino, your data is safe, no matter where it is within your system.
Domino has another layer of security at the database level — called database ACL — which provides the ability to control, at a very granular level, who does or does not have access to data and how each person or team can interact with documents. You can also prevent local copy/replication. With Domino, only the people you specifically allow access to your data will have access — and you are protected against ID masquerading. Domino’s application design security offers the additional ability to control how specific users interact with individual documents, including controlling access of sensitive document data by encrypting the documents themselves — or even specific fields or parts of documents — and only allowing those with an application key to access the respective data. Without authorization, it is impossible to a get into or change a Domino application or a document in your database.
Secure Applications and Data
With Domino, you control individual desktops. If something malicious were to somehow make its way into your system, damage can be limited quickly. With its “execution control list,” every object in a Domino database has a unique signature and the workstation has a built-in security model to control what those signatures can do. If someone attempts to send malware via the messaging system, the mail client automatically prohibits its automatic execution. While Exchange can scan message for malware (at an extra charge), if the malware makes it past the scanning, a user can still execute it. Domino takes this a step further and secures the workstation as extra layer of security for break-through cases. With Domino, your organization is safe against virus or worm propagation.
Secure Workstations
From the very beginning Domino was built for extensibility as well as security. The now ubiquitous web engine was itself a protocol added years after the foundational Domino technology was built. Because the foundation of the platform predates popular web browsers by a decade, the foundation was already field-tested long before Windows 95 and Internet Explorer were launched. This is why Domino has been able to securely serve important business data to the web so reliably and securely since the mid-90s.
Security that’s Proven
Employee records, customer data, proprietary information, and intellectual property are just a subset of what your organization needs to have properly stored, handled, and protected. It’s not just good business sense and crucial to your reputation, it’s a legal necessity. Protecting your digital information from unauthorized access, corruption, or theft and making sure that none of your data can be misused by third parties for fraud should be paramount in any leader’s initiatives. Robust data security protects you against cybercriminals, and against insider threats and human error (often the leading cause of data breaches). Having a rock-solid platform like Domino powering your IT solutions and acting as a fundamental engine for your digital transformation efforts means that there is less configuration and human oversight required to adhere to all the modern data protection policies and privacy regulations — GRPR, HIPAA, and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, to name just a few. Not having this protection can be extremely costly.
Why Does All This Matter?
Not having the security that Domino offers can mean not just a loss in business, but also could lead to millions of dollars of fines. Every enterprise has strong incentives to make sure it maintains the tightest security and compliance — the business value of data has never been greater. Why trust your future to “Swiss cheese,” when your business can be powered by Domino?
As a point of comparison, an alarming
85% of organizations using Microsoft have
suffered data breaches
Because Domino predates popular web browsers by a decade, the platform was already field-tested long before Windows 95 and Internet Explorer were launched.
With Domino, only the people you specifically allow access to your data will have access — and you are protected against ID masquerading.
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With Domino you can limit access to data to certain people in your organization.
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