Rama Kolappan, Mobile Director with Accellion, recently addressed the topic of Enabling Secure and Mobile Cloud Collaboration at Secure Seattle 2013 . The 3 key messages to enterprises:
1) You are not alone; mobile productivity challenges face all types of organizations.
2) The BYOD trend can do more good than harm.
3) Sharing enterprise content securely in this era of the iPad is realistic and easier than you think.
Check out the full presentation below.
Cloud-based file sharing and collaboration solutions are ripe for the picking, but what’s right for one organization might not be right for another. Accellion presented the pros and cons of various cloud computing choices at the InfoSec World 2013 Conference & Expo last month. To learn more about the top cloud considerations for file sharing and collaboration and to find out where you stand on the privacy and public cloud debate, check out this presentation entitled ”Do You Know Where Your Data Is?
It happens every day: individuals on the go turn to free cloud file sharing services to quickly share and access files on mobile devices. The use of these free cloud services including Dropbox and Box is most often not approved by the organization. We’ve heard first-hand the anxiety this causes IT with data security and compliance concerns with users sending out confidential information on a whim, whenever and wherever they please.
Now there is more reason for concern with the publishing of recent research from the University of Glasgow. In the recent report George Grispos of University of Glasgow found that his team could fully recover files that were sent via Dropbox, Box, and SugarSync – even those deleted from the file sharing services. The researchers uploaded a combination of files (Word documents, PDFs, and images); synced with their test devices (an HTC Android smartphone and an iPhone); viewed, saved, and deleted the files; and then made attempts to recover each.
In what InfoWorld calls a “data security perfect storm,” the testers were largely successful, with forensic toolkits recovering numerous deleted files on the Android phone, including 15 files from Box, 11 from SugarSync, and nine from DropBox.
The article reminds readers that these results provide “an excellent example as to why companies need to approach BYOD and cloud adoption with care.” And certainly goes to show that not all cloud solutions were created equal. Accellion provides private cloud file sharing solutions for enterprise use that ensure all enterprise information remains under the management and control of the organization and is not handed over to a third party. Enterprise-level security that extends to all files types, all mobile devices, and all users, is attainable and is a must for today’s organizations on the go. The team at Accellion is here to help.
Employees are more productive than ever. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, worker productivity grew 80 percent from 1973 to 2011, and has risen 25 percent in the past 10 years alone.
This uptick is certainly tied to the fact that many employees are able to do their jobs from anywhere. Thanks to flexible work environments and mobile devices, employees are simply better equipped than ever to get their jobs done better – provided they have access to the content they need while out of the office.
To help store and manage access to enterprise documents, 78 percent of Fortune 500 companies rely on Microsoft® SharePoint. And within organizations that have deployed SharePoint, 62 percent of information workers are turning to the application daily to find the files they need. But what happens when those same workers walk out of the office doors and try to access the files via smartphones and other mobile devices? The productivity ends there since for most organizations access to SharePoint stops at the corporate firewall. Why is this? Because external file sharing of files stored in SharePoint is not well supported either for employees wanting access on mobile devices or for organizations wanting to share with external parties.
Lack of external file sharing of SharePoint files leads to increased data risk and reduced productivity. Without supporting mobile access to SharePoint employees seek unsecure workarounds such as downloading files out of SharePoint and sharing via free cloud based services. The same for sharing SharePoint files with external parties. Employees will find a way
But, this doesn’t have to be the case. If you’re ready to mobilize SharePoint or another enterprise content management (ECM) solution, check out the five key requirements to help you maximize security, IT management, and productive employee communications.
With the right SharePoint-enabled secure mobility solution, users can easily and securely get a hold of the information they need and instantly share with others – without a VPN. And, in turn, your organization is able to keep pace with the upward productivity trend – a win-win.
Dropbox, Box, YouSendIt, Google Drive, Evernote, Skype, Google Hangouts. These are just some of the apps that Delyn Simon – a 42-year old executive – rattled off to Quentin Hardy at The New York Times when asked what services she uses on her iPhone.
Forget the malicious cybercriminals, for most IT Administrators, it’s your own employees who are cause for the greatest concern. Downloading dozens of apps aimed to make daily work tasks more automated and convenient has become so commonplace that individuals often don’t think twice about hitting “install” on their smartphones and then using those unapproved apps to access and share company information.
And, the number of different apps within just one organization can be quite startling. In Hardy’s recent article, “Where Apps Meet Work, Secret Data is at Risk”, he shares that the streaming video service, Netflix, discovered employees using 496 different smartphone apps, primarily for data storage, sharing, and collaboration. And, Cisco Systems found several hundred apps touching its own network via employees’ usage.
The risks of accessing these apps for both personal and business interactions become very real when sensitive data is compromised. That’s exactly what happened last week when Evernote, an online note-taking service, experienced a breach, with customer names, emails and encrypted passwords possibly stolen, driving the company to reset passwords for 50 million users.
So, is there any way for organizations to prevent employees from using their own consumer mobile apps? Yes! But, first you must eliminate the need for employees to turn to outside data storage, sharing, and collaboration apps in the first place. That means providing a mandatory alternative – a solution that allows users to easily send, share, and access files and that allows you, the IT administrator, to know what’s being shared, where data is stored, and that corporate data is safe.
Empowering employees with a secure mobile application is the first step to keeping your corporate data safe in today’s mobile world. And it just so happens Accellion can help you with that.
Recently Dropbox and Microsoft have publicly promoted new features for their free consumer file sharing solutions that could result in security risks for companies if used incorrectly or by those with malicious intent. Microsoft announced today a change to their SkyDrive collaboration feature. File sharing in SkyDrive is now defaulted to not require authentication.
Dropbox announced their open Sync APIs making it even easier for a 3rd party to register and download the Dropbox SDK and use it to embed Dropbox into applications. Given the already widespread usage of DropBox by not only consumers but also business users, this ease of integration only deepens the risk that enterprise content can leak into the unknown. The simplicity to leverage Dropbox APIs also allows the opportunity for people with malicious intent to develop free apps that users perceive as useful but in turn allows access to dropbox accounts. Behind the scenes the app could be copying content.
And lack of authentication as a default setting can lead to similar negative consequences. For example, without care and attention and end user could inadvertently share documents with unintended recipients.
Accellion advises the following to any organisation looking for a file sharing solution that will protect enterprise information.
1. Ensure you can set authentication to be turned on by default. Sending without this should be the exception not the rule.
2. Restrict the apps your employees can access via the file sharing solution through white/black listing
3. Only approve/white list applications to integrate with file sharing apps after they have been tested internally
4. Increase security by ensuring only the recipient can open up the document.
For more information on how organisations can reduce the risk of data leakage from unsecure file sharing, read this free Osterman Research report “The Need for Enterprise-Grade File Sharing and Sync”.
A topic that concerns every law firm CIO and IT manager today is whether to permit legal professionals to bring their own computing devices to work, for work. In other words, to support BYOD or not to support BYOD: that is the question. Or, at least it’s the question of the moment– with law firms, like so many organizations, considering how to support employees’ preferences to use personal mobile devices for work purposes, while keeping corporate documents properly managed and secure.
Should you support unlimited device types? How can you track which documents are shared outside of company walls? How does BYOD fit into your existing compliance strategy? It’s these questions that are currently the talk of the legal world. Check out some recent headlines:
Accellion Chief Marketing Officer, Paula Skokowski, will lead a panel on “Protecting Legal Documents in the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) Post PC Era” with Chris Zegers, CIO of Lowenstein Sandler, Chad Ergun, Director of Global Services & Business Intelligence at Gibson & Dunn and Avi Solomon, Director of IT at Becker and Poliakoff P.A. at the Law Firm Chief Information and Technology Officers Forum. The panel will take place on Wednesday, January 30, 2013 from 11:30 a.m. – 12:15 p.m. ET in conjunction with the LegalTech New York 2013 conference.
We hope to see you there.
According to analyst firm, Enterprise Strategy Group, the enterprise cloud based file sharing revolution is being driven not by IT, but by end users – individuals who need to access and share data across laptops, smart phones and tablets whenever the need may arise. And, it’s these individuals who often subscribe to consumer-based file sharing solutions on their own and then bring those tools into the enterprise to support business use – creating a data security nightmare for IT.
This situation has IT playing catch up, yet many organizations are hesitant to embrace cloud services. Why? ESG found that 43 percent of organizations are worried about data security and privacy concerns and 32 percent about giving up too much control. Ironically, without a proper file sharing solution in place, users are calling the shots, creating the same security risks and a lack of control that’s been holding them back from the cloud in the first place.
In a new white paper, Evaluating Cloud File Sharing and Collaboration Solutions, ESG advised organizations to find a single, secure file sharing and collaboration solution that they can confidently endorse and provides a checklist of what to ask during the due diligence process, including:
To help you make a smart investment that’s right for your company, download the complete recommended checklist today.
P.S. Accellion answers “yes” to all of the questions above.
If you’re in the government sector, new cloud services and products are likely in the plans for 2013. Cloud momentum continues to build according to InformationWeek Government’s third annual Federal Cloud Computing survey, which showed that half of its agency respondents are currently moving ahead with cloud adoption or are in the early stages of doing so – up from 40 percent last year.
So, what’s spurring this growth? According to the survey, the move to the cloud is being driven by three primary business objectives:
- Lowering the cost of ongoing IT operations (54%)
- Reducing capital investments in servers and data center equipment (51%)
- Supporting mobile productivity and collaboration within the agency and with other agencies (37%)
Number three on this list came as no surprise to us, as we talk every day with organizations – within the government and enterprise sectors – who are looking for more efficient, secure, and cost effective ways to access and share information on mobile devices with people inside and outside of the organization. That need leads them to Accellion.
For Accellion customer Texas Juvenile Justice Department (TJJD), the ability to collaborate quickly and securely makes all the difference for the youth they serve. Operating dozens of treatment facilities, correctional institutions and halfway houses throughout the state, TJJD needed a way for its 2,500 employees to share confidential data efficiently and reliably between parents, medical staff and legal counsel.
Before switching to Accellion, staff members often turned to mailing hard copies of documents, burning CDs, or encrypting individual emails in order to work around a cumbersome file transfer and encryption mechanism. TJJD clearly needed a better option, fast.
The same could be said for other government organizations at the federal, state and local level that select Accellion. These customers include government agencies such as NASA, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and the National Institute of Standards of Technology that have a need for the strictest security and compliance requirements for the sharing and collaboration of digital information.
If mobile productivity and collaboration are part of your cloud plans for 2013, we can help.
No one would be shocked to learn that organizations aren’t big fans of employees playing online poker or roulette on the job. Which is why, when 1,200 IT decisions makers at private companies were asked to name the top three worst apps that employees could download, gambling was at the top of the list, with 58 percent of responses.
Right behind concerns about bringing a bit of Vegas into the office are serious worries about certain online file sharing applications. But not just any apps – Dropbox and Box in particular. Fifty-one percent of survey respondents named these unapproved cloud file sharing apps as some of the worst offenders in the enterprise, earning the number two spot on the list. And, of the 45 percent of respondents who blacklisted apps, 57 percent named Dropbox and 42percent named Box as the apps being banned.
What happens is that users genuinely need a way to share large files and when there’s not an IT-approved solution in place they find one on their own. Consumer-focused online file transfer solutions, such as Dropbox, are then used behind the scenes to send proprietary documents, creating security risks and headaches for IT. It’s this need for a Dropbox alternative – a secure, proven, enterprise-class solution – that drives organizations to Accellion.
Accellion customer, MiTek, a global construction company, had been there, done that, leading the company to ban Dropbox, deploy Accellion, and not look back. Here’s what Justin Daniels, Web Services/Software Engineering and IT Support Manager with MiTek had to say:
“With public cloud providers, there are so many unknowns when it comes to security: Where exactly are your files? How do you get them back if you change providers? How do you know where your employees are sending files? We weren’t willing to give up the rights to data that was sensitive, proprietary, and was rightfully ours. With Accellion, we know exactly where our files are, can track and monitor both senders and recipients, and enforce file sharing policies at a user- and corporate-wide level.”
When customers say “yes” to Accellion, it makes saying “no” to Dropbox and Box a no-brainer.
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