OREANDA-NEWS. February 26, 2016.  SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) today announced that it has appointed Justin Somaini as SAP’s chief security officer (CSO).

He joined the company from cloud provider Box, where he was chief trust officer, having previously held a number of senior positions at both Yahoo and Symantec. Somaini has accrued more than 20 years’ professional experience in the IT security sector.

“The newly created role of CSO at SAP highlights the relevance of security in a digitally connected world,” said Bernd Leukert, member of the Executive Board of SAP SE, Products & Innovation. “In appointing Justin Somaini, we have been able to secure the services of a security expert whose knowledge and experience will not only benefit SAP but also our customers.”

In the face of a constantly evolving set of potential threats, businesses can no longer rely solely on implementing passive preventive mechanisms. It is essential that they actively identify and close security gaps as soon as possible. Early detection is becoming increasingly important, as is the development of tools to efficiently eradicate the threat of security breaches. Consequently, SAP has developed a three-pillar, end-to-end security strategy designed to secure its own business operations and to help ensure high security standards in the software it supplies to its customers. The three pillars are: prevent, detect, and react. Details of SAP’s end-to-end security strategy are available here.

“In the past, IT security had a reputation for being very costly and hampering day-to-day business operations,” said SAP’s new CSO Somaini. “But I’m convinced that security and business will — and, indeed, must — go hand in hand in the future. Ultimately, security will be the deciding factor in every company’s business future.”

Keeping up to date with the latest security information and advice therefore is a decisive factor in staying safe. With this in mind, SAP recently set up a section on the website for SAP HANA devoted to providing information about various security aspects of the platform. This section contains valuable information about operating SAP HANA platform-based systems securely, including tips on secure configuration, warnings about potential security risks and advice on how to counteract them. There is also a direct link to SAP Service Marketplace where patches and updates are available for download.