Introduction
Employees increasingly need the flexibility to work remotely and use personal devices to access corporate data. In the highly regulated industry of financial services, banks require powerful data security that supports remote and mobile workforces while protecting sensitive business data.
A global financial services institution with nearly 50,000 employees, “the Company”, faced the challenge of allowing corporate staff to work remotely, while ensuring that critical financial data is secure.
This organization is the 10th largest bank in the United States, and offers credit cards, auto loans, retail banking and corporate banking services. As an information-driven business, they required the free-flow of data between employees – while complying with strict regulations and protecting against cybercriminals targeting this sector. Traditionally, security technologies centered around protecting information living within the Company’s own perimeter, using solutions such as firewalls and data loss prevention. However, this has changed due to the rise of cloud software and mobile adoption. Locking down the means and location through which employees access corporate information in today’s mobile workplaces is no longer a practical option. Faced with the new reality of a borderless IT environment, the Company needed a more flexible approach to data security that empowered remote and mobile workers.
The Fall of Perimeter Defenses
Mobile adoption and the popularity of cloud technologies has changed IT environments forever. A security strategy that relies solely on controlling data within a corporate network now faces a wide variety of vulnerabilities, even within highly regulated industries such as financial services. Information teams need to embrace security controls custom-fit for modern environments and current user behavior, allowing information to move freely across employees, devices, and third-party applications.
Solution Highlights
- Pre-built integrations with Box, Microsoft and Dropbox.
- Easy access and editing of secure data within native applications.
- Secure communications via TLS/SSL.
Use Case 1: Bring Your Own Device (BYOD)
The line between employees’ corporate and personal lives is becoming blurred. With mobile and personal devices now used to access company information on the go or at home. The Company was concerned about sensitive data being shared and/or stored on unsanctioned devices, without appropriate security measures that mitigated against the risk of data breaches.
Digital Guardians solution enabled the Company to take control of critical data, regardless of the device it resided on, with security that follows information wherever it goes. With Vera’s platform, they could automatically encrypt sensitive files and use its policy engine to manage authorized users and the actions they can perform with those files.
The Digital Guardian dashboard gave the information security team visibility into its data and how it is being used, even after it has left the corporate network.
Active File Protection
AES 256-bit encryption with secure communication of keys via TLS 1.2.
Granular access policies that travel with the file and policies that can be updated in real-time.
SaaS solution is quick to deploy and simple to integrate with existing technologies.
Track, manage and audit access to all critical content.
Digital Guardian Secure Collaboration
SaaS deployment for simplified roll-out across a mobile workforce.
Data-centric security fits corporate and employees’ needs.
User experience prioritized to increase enterprise-wide adoption of secure practices.
Use Case 2: Secure Data Sharing in Cloud Collaboration Solutions
To boost the productivity and security of remote and office based workers, the Company embraced cloud collaboration tools such as Dropbox, SharePoint and Box. However, these solutions do not have built-in encryption and security controls needed to protect all file types that contain sensitive financial services data.
The Company deployed Digital Guardian to secure sensitive information in these cloud collaboration tools, encrypting files and managing user access to information. Digital Guardian automatically secures data without any additional steps required from users. As a result, employees can use the data sharing platform of their choice, with security embedded to the source of data as it flows freely around teams and locations.
Solution Recap
Offering employees the flexibility to work from home enables businesses to remain competitive, by helping attract and retain top talent, increase productivity and realize cost efficiencies.
Using Digital Guardian Secure Collaboration, the Company switched to a data-centric security strategy that supported flexible workflows across any location, device or platform. Fitting security solutions around evolving user requirements decreased the change of introducing unknown risks due to employees circumventing security controls.
As the IT environment becomes increasingly borderless, due to BYOD, cloud and remote working, the Digital Guardian Secure Collaboration platform reduces risk across an expanded attack surface.