Meeting TISAX Standards with PKWARE, Part 1

If you’re an automotive supplier or service provider, TISAX compliance has become a prerequisite for doing business with any major German automobile company. However, like many other data security mandates, TISAX is only a few years old, and many organizations are still searching for the right approach to it.

In our TISAX blog series, we’ll explore the specific requirements that auto industry suppliers and service providers must meet, and how PKWARE is helping organizations meet those requirements. But first, we’ll take on a more general question:

What is TISAX and Why Does It Matter?

The Trusted Information Security Assessment Exchange (TISAX) provides a framework for data security verification within the German automotive industry. TISAX was introduced in 2017 and has become the standard process for demonstrating that organizations have implemented appropriate data security.

Through TISAX, companies undergo third-party assessments of their data security systems and processes and share their assessment results with customers and partners. TISAX assessments are based on requirements defined in the VDA ISA (Verband der Automobilindustrie Information Security Assessment), which itself is based on ISO 27001 standards.

TISAX assessments cover high-level corporate governance and risk management topics, as well as technical details related to data classification, encryption, and reporting. Companies that are unable to demonstrate their compliance will find it difficult or impossible to compete in the German automotive market.

How Can PKWARE Help?

Meeting the data security requirements of TISAX can be painful and time consuming. Data security mandates like TISAX are complex and multifaceted, requiring the efforts of multiple departments within an organization, along with multiple vendors, partners, and advisors. Even requirements for a single section of the guidelines, such as data security, can involve coordination between large groups of stakeholders and solutions from several different vendors.

PKWARE simplifies TISAX compliance by providing a wide range of capabilities to address multiple requirements. Our data-centric technology reduces workloads on IT and compliance resources, and reduces the number of solutions a company needs to use to meet its obligations.

A Single, Automated Solution

Companies use PKWARE’s data security platform to meet a variety of TISAX standards, including specific requirements for data classification, data protection, encryption key management, and activity logging—from a single solution.

But perhaps the best capability of the PKWARE solution is the ability to automate data security, helping to ensure that your company will constantly be within TISAX guidelines, even if new files, new systems, and new users come online.

In the rest of this blogpost series, we’ll explore TISAX requirement areas in more detail, as well as how PKWARE’s capabilities address them. Up next: data classification schemes and why automation is so important to making them work.