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Tackling BYOD Security Challenges

December 14th, 2012

In our last post, “New Research to Drive Your Mobile Policies”, we talked about how mobile devices are redefining the workplace, pushing the need for ubiquitous access to enterprise content. But, the big question is how to give users what they want – user-friendly, around-the-clock data availability – while maintaining strong IT security and control. It can be a big undertaking if you don’t know what to look for from a file sharing solution.

Here are 10 must-haves to help meet both users’ and IT’s needs:

  1. Multiple platform support: Even if you’re a Blackberry shop today, you don’t know what the future holds, so you need to be able to support iOS, Android and Blackberry devices should the need arise.
  2. Seamless access to existing ECM stores: Allow users to gain anytime, anywhere access to data – whether stored in SharePoint or another ECM system – and share files with internal or external audiences, without a VPN.
  3. Enhanced encryption: To lower data breach risks, your solution of choice should encrypt data both in transit and at rest, across all devices – whether in the cloud or on-premise.
  4. Centralized management: Easily configure user permissions and manage user policies and profiles, including role-based access controls – ideally from a single, web-based interface.
  5. Proactive file protection: Extend your organization’s established content/file monitoring policies to all file sharing activities by integrating with commercially available DLP and anti-virus solutions.
  6. Complete device control: Ask about remote monitoring, logging, and wiping capabilities, to provide much-needed visibility and control should a device be lost or stolen.
  7. Required enterprise integrations: Ensure that the solution you’re evaluating will support your existing infrastructure, applications, and security processes, such as LDAP, Active Directory, single sign-on, authentication, FTP, and SMTP.
  8. File sharing visibility: With evolving regulatory requirements, you need granular reporting capabilities, real-time file tracking, and automated audit trails to maintain compliance standings.
  9. Deployment choice: Whether a public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid environment, evaluate which deployment provides maximum data security and availability and will have your users up and running quickly.
  10. Say “no” to consumer-class services: Prohibit users from seeking out their own consumer-based solutions, such as Dropbox, to prevent being left in the dark about where files have been sent and to whom.

Extend security to every file and every device within your organization and embrace the BYOD trend. Your users will thank you.

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New Research to Drive Enterprise Mobile Policies

December 12th, 2012

With so many organizations wondering how to support the boom of mobile workers, we recently hosted a sponsored webinar, “Empowering the BYOD Workforce”, to provide insight into the state of mobile affairs, the evolving workplace, and what types of users are driving the BYOD charge. In case you missed it, Chris Silva with The Altimeter Group, LLC provided some great research to help guide the development and prioritization of BYOD strategies. Here are some highlights:

  • Smartphones are the “it” device: The pendulum is shifting from laptops to smartphones as the mobile screen of choice. Data from Nielsen shows that more than half (55%) of U.S. mobile subscribers have a smartphone – up from 41 percent last year. And that number will no doubt continue to rise with the anticipated arrival of new Google Nexus devices.
  • Mobile computing is now the norm: Insight Research reveals that 89 of the top 100 companies offer telecommuting, with 67 percent of all workers relying on mobile and wireless computing to get work done.
  • Work hours are blurred: Research from Good Technology found that individuals are productive well beyond traditional office hours, with more than 80 percent of people continue to work when leaving the office, adding up to an extra 30 hours per month. Plus, 49 percent do work email after 10:00pm and 69 percent will not sleep before checking email.
  • Mobilizing sales is a must: The Altimeter Group, LLC  found that field/sales employees are the most important user group to mobilize, as these road warriors live on mobile devices and need a simple and secure way to manage, view, store, and share information.

So, the big question is: how do you make enterprise file sharing accessible on phones and tablets to support the mobility trends outlined above, while maintaining tight control and security?  Check out our next blog entry to learn how to navigate the security challenges of BYOD while enabling your growing mobile workforce.

 

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Gmail Support for Files up to 10GB? That’s so 2002.

November 30th, 2012

This week Google announced that Gmail users can attach files stored in Google Drive to Gmail messages up to 10GB. “..whether it’s photos from your recent camping trip, video footage from your brother’s wedding, or a presentation to your boss, all your stuff is easy to find and easy to share…”, the company went on to say. Now, we’re OK with Drive being used for wilderness shots and videos of Uncle Bob cutting loose on the dance floor, but when it comes to business-related communications, like sending a PPT, we have to stop you right there.

For true enterprise collaboration and file sharing, we’ve found that size matters – as our customer, Mark Yee from AutoDesk, will tell you. That’s the beauty of our solution – there’s no hard limit on file size (Guinness World Records take note!) That means that our clients can send massive, data-intensive documents such as software upgrades, CAD drawings, media files, and customer databases, without wondering if a file is too big to be shared. And that’s been the case for years. Accellion customers have routinely sent files of 100-200GB in size and some brave souls have even sent 1TB files!

Plus, we provide tight security – integration with DLP solutions, automated audit trails, extensive file tracking and reporting, and customizable file access and storage controls – to make sure that your confidential data remains protected at rest and during transit. We wouldn’t have it any other way.

Google, welcome to the party, albeit a tad late. While 10GB is progress, it’s not going to cut it for serious enterprise users. While we believe that large email attachments should be phased out with dinosaurs and fax machines, we love the idea of our clients sending Stegosaurus-sized documents. We can’t imagine that ever going out of style.

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An Accellion Thanksgiving!

November 21st, 2012

An article in CIO reminds us all of the importance of information sharing and collaboration in successful organizations. The need to share and collaborate is not new at all. We can go back to 1620 when a boat filled with more than one hundred people sailed across the Atlantic to settle the New World.

The first winter for the Pilgrims was very difficult because they had arrived too late to plant crops. However, next spring Native Americans shared valuable information about native crops. In the autumn of 1621, the colonists harvested plentiful crops of corn, barley, beans and pumpkins. The colonists had much to be thankful for, and a feast was planned. The local Indians brought deer to roast with turkey and other wild game. This spirit of sharing and collaboration between the Pilgrims and Indians made it possible for the early settlers to prosper in the New World.

Today many businesses thrive on the same “need to share” mindset that the Indians and Native Americans demonstrated back in 1620.

In this season of sharing, Accellion has a few tips for sharing corporate information securely with colleagues, customers, partners, and vendors in order to create more productive enterprises.

1. Choose a secure file sharing solution that is simple enough for employees to use, but secure enough for IT. When secure file sharing is easy, employees make it as part of their daily routine and organizations encourage it.

2. Find a mobile file sharing solution that integrates with your existing enterprise IT infrastructure, including SharePoint, iManage, active directory, archiving systems, mobile device management and data loss prevention (DLP) systems. When secure file sharing works along-side existing applications, no one loses out. Investments are not wasted.

3.Implement a solution that enables secure file sharing across corporate boundaries. When both internal and external users securely collaborate on projects, information shared among partners, vendors, and suppliers is protected.

4. Select a solution that provides native applications for iOS, Android and BlackBerry devices to securely view, share and edit content on-the-go. When mobile file sharing is ubiquitous, there is no excuse for using unsecure workarounds.

5. Select a solution that provides the audit trails and reporting required to demonstrate compliance with industry and government regulations such as PCI, SOX, and HIPAA. When organizations need to not only protect sensitive data, but also demonstrate compliance, sophisticated reporting is a must have feature.

Happy Thanksgiving from the Accellion Team!

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Extend Your Use of SharePoint: Unify, Mobilize, and Secure Enterprise Content

November 13th, 2012

While a new survey shows that SharePoint adoption is on the rise, with 28 percent of respondents planning to deploy SharePoint 2013 within the next year and 26 percent planning to migrate to SharePoint 2013, this growth comes at a price, with serious administrative, staffing and security challenges. The survey revealed that SharePoint administrator staffing levels have decreased by 33 percent – from three to two people – and difficulty finding qualified IT personnel to manage SharePoint systems jumped from 28 percent to 44 percent.

With enterprise content often spread across SharePoint, Windows File Servers, NFS, FTP or ECM systems, there’s been no single, secure way for employees to retrieve desired files across file stores, share documents and collaborate – particularly from mobile devices. Until now…

Accellion brings together users’ content, regardless of where files are stored, providing a unified view of documents from desktops, Androids, iPhones, iPads, or other devices. Users gain mobile file access via a single, secure access point – no VPN needed – with the freedom to instantly view, edit, and share documents with internal or external constitutuents via a secure email link, up to 100MB in size. It’s the same easy browsing and access experience that Accellion Secure File Sharing has delivered to hundreds of enterprises and government agencies for years.

Plus, IT can kiss those SharePoint administrative headaches goodbye, with visibility into where files reside, who has viewed, and where documents have been sent. Apply desired security policies, including LDAP and Active Directory integration and eliminate the use of unsecure file sharing alternatives across your organization.

Isn’t it time you made SharePoint work for you.

 

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Veterans Day, Honoring Those Who Serve

November 11th, 2012

November 11th is Veterans Day. It’s a day to honor United States’ veterans of all conflicts for their patriotism and willingness to serve. Veterans Day was originally established to honor Americans who had served in World War I. Since then, it has become a national holiday that is celebrated on November 11, the anniversary of the day World War I ended in 1918.

Many people will celebrate the holiday by attending special events that honor those who have served in the military.  Some will attend events in their local communities. Others will travel to the nation’s capital for the observance at Arlington National Cemetery.

For the Veterans, it’s a family reunion of sorts. They roll up on motorcycles, in wheelchairs, taxicabs, and city busses. They shuffle with canes, with limps, and with pride. Many come wearing their uniform of service with the emblems of their military units. They come accompanied by family, by friends and by the memories of their time served.

The Accellion team would like to say thank you to the military family that has served honorably to protect the rights and liberties of this great nation. We owe a debt of gratitude that words alone cannot express.

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Trick or Breach: Frightening Spike in Data Security Incidents

October 31st, 2012

Who’s lurking around your valuable data? According to new figures from the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) in the U.K., your organization’s risk for a breach has increased by a startling percent.

Here’s the spooktacular data they found:

  • In the past five years, data security breaches have increased more than 1000 percent in the U.K.
  • The industry hit hardest is local government, with breaches increasing by 1609 percent; followed by public sector (1308%); and private sector (1159%)
  • The ICO has issued nearly £2 million of fines from July 2011 to 2012 – more than three times the amount of penalties from the previous year

These numbers were reinforced in the United States in Verizon’s 2012 Data Breach Investigations Report that reported 855 incidents and 174 million compromised records.

Verizon’s annual report includes more incidents, derived from more contributors, and represents a broader and more diverse scope. The number of compromised records across these incidents skyrocketed back up to 174 million after reaching an all-time low in last year’s report .In fact, the 2012 report boasts the second-highest data loss total since Verizon started keeping track in 2004.

Nick Banks, head of EMEA and APAC operations for Imation Mobile Security told Help Net Security, “Organizations must take responsibility for preventing breaches, and with so much available technology there really is no excuse for failing to adequately protect data.”

Nick’s right. Safeguarding corporate data has to be at the top of organizations’ priority lists. With tools like Accellion, comprehensive enterprise security is attainable, affordable, and easier than ever – providing a safe way for users to share information, while ensuring files don’t end up in the wrong hands.

It’s time to turn this trend in the opposite direction. Who’s in?

We do our part to help Accellion’s customers and their business users protect data while sharing files with external and internal users.

As for the haunts of Halloween… there is nothing that can help the chills and thrills.

 

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Ten Ways to Keep Enterprise Data Safe Inside Mobile Devices

October 26th, 2012

An Osterman Research report recently conducted a survey of 760 individuals addressing the bring-your-own-device, or BYOD, issues facing their organizations and found widespread use of third-party, cloud-based storage and file-synchronization offerings that are sometimes used with IT’s blessing, but more often not. Dropbox, for example, is used in 14 percent of 1,000-plus-employee organizations with IT’s blessing—and, conversely, in 44 percent of them without approval.

So enterprises need to look for a system that combines easy-to-use file sharing and synchronization services with enterprise-class security controls. eWEEK with the help of Jon Pincus, senior vice president of products at Accellion, a provider of enterprise-class secure file sharing solutions, brings together 10 best practices on this topic. 

Slideshow:

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Three Lessons Learned from Colossal Government Data Breach

October 23rd, 2012

Does the name Bradley Manning mean anything to you? If you’re a government organization, the name is synonymous with “colossal data breach” – as Manning spearheaded the biggest leak of classified information in our nation’s history.

To briefly recap, Manning, a U.S. Army soldier, single handedly accessed more than 900,000 intelligence documents, including daily war logs from military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. And he did it by downloading files onto CDs labeled “Lady Gaga”, which he shared with the whistleblower site, WikiLeaks.

According to Manning’s published chat logs, the event was “childishly easy”; “no one expected a thing”; and the “weak servers, weak logging, weak physical security, weak counter-intelligence, and inattentive signal analysis created a perfect storm.”

With Manning’s trial just a few months away, we take a look back to share three important lessons learned from this monumental event:

Lesson #1: DLP is Important: While Manning had access to a classified network used by the Department of Defense and the State Department, having a data loss prevention (DLP) solution in place that scanned information, across all network points before it left the network, would have provided an additional line of defense to prevent the data from being downloaded – to a CD, flash drive, or any other storage mechanism.

Lesson #2: It’s Time to Cast a Wider Security Net: Because most government agencies are large, data security can be focused on the “core” or interior of the network versus the perimeter of the organization. But, big data security challenges arise as employees have new ways to view and share confidential data – via BYOD movements, wireless access points, and consumer-based, third-party file sharing sites. Now that networks have become more decentralized, agencies need to deploy a wider “net” to secure and manage data.

Lesson #3: Security and Large File Size Aren’t Mutually Exclusive: Large data transfers are not only common within the government domain, they are often required. But how are agencies securing and managing that data?  And, can large files be shared simply and on demand? To address these needs, organizations are turning to mobile file sharing solutions that give employees the ability to send and synchronize large, classified and confidential documents with ease, while giving IT the security, authentication, encryption and file tracking and reporting capabilities necessary to support data security best practices.

These are three key lessons to remember as we move into 2013 and strive to keep newsworthy security breaches a part of our past, fully protecting government data exchanges of the future.

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Attach, Send, Secure: On-Demand File Sharing Within Outlook

October 19th, 2012

With 144.8 billion emails sent every day and the number projected to rise to 192.2 billion in 2016, according to the Radicati Group, email remains the preferred method of communication in the workplace – going on two decades strong. Yet, most business users aren’t able to send attachments at will, with IT typically capping outbound file size limits at 10MB.

With the Accellion Outlook Plug-in, you can extend your organization’s use of Outlook, improve email performance, and just maybe score a few popularity points of your own with your business users. With the new enhanced features plug-in users can send files up to 2GB in size directly from within Microsoft Outlook. Users simply click on the Accellion “Attach Items” icon on the Outlook toolbar, select the file, hit “send” and Accellion takes over, offloading the attachment – delivering the file as a secure link and enabling download following authentication. Attach, send, secure.

But, our new plug-in is about much more than super-sizing file limits.  It’s about giving users new features with a new level of control. Now everyone is admin-enabled and can administer file access controls and file expiration dates when they send files, deciding who can download files via the secure link and how long those links are active. And, of course, IT benefits with up-to-date audit trails to ensure the security of corporate data and files offloaded to boost email performance and reduce storage requirements.

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