Team file sharing and collaboration platforms are everywhere, from DropBox to SharePoint, they have revolutionised the way that teams collaborate. No longer do we need to play document tennis, download assets, and send them painstakingly over the internet to their desired recipient, only for some changes to be made before commencing a frustrating back and forth.
Team collaboration software changed all of this. It is now possible for multiple users to access the same document at the same time, each making their own changes to the document simultaneously. Now as much as we may love Tennis, this is a better way!
Collaboration tools such as Slack, MS Teams and Drop Box offer teams endless possibilities for discussion, easy communication and sharing of information. To many businesses it may feel like their birthdays have all come at once, but what happens when a hacker or even a disgruntled former employee infiltrates the party?
Whenever data is shared over the internet, the threat of interception exists. With so much free flowing data between destinations it is not uncommon for these file sharing platforms to be the target of cyber-criminals.
Most file sharing platforms offer a degree of protection against hackers. However, they have not been built with security as their main focus. Designed from a convenience-first standpoint, security seems like an after-thought. The cycle of breach and patch that is commonplace for some file sharing solutions shouldn’t be anybody’s idea of a robust cybersecurity stance.
If collaboration is not to lead to infiltration, file sharing solutions need to be secure by design. This means incorporating advanced data protection technologies such as standards-based encryption, file fragmentation and state-of-the-art key management. They should also contain complete audit logs for forensic analysis of user behaviour if required. Importantly, these security features should not come at the expense of performance or user experience.
The work from home revolution that has taken place over the past couple of years has seen the global adoption of collaboration platforms. Unfortunately, this has exposed organisations to an increasingly broad threat landscape, as cyber-criminals target vulnerable software and remote workers. Of course, not all threats originate outside the organisation. Around one quarter of all cybersecurity incidents originate from within the business. Insider threats have the potential to wreak as much havoc on a company’s data as malicious outsiders. It is notoriously difficult to pinpoint exactly where an internal breach originated from; and to tell the difference between a deliberate act and old-fashioned human error.
One way of identifying, and preventing, insider threats is by having a constant log of every time someone inside the organisation interacts with a file or data. This is a feature which is synonymous with SureDrop, the secure file sharing and collaboration solution from Senetas. SureDrop captures a full audit trail of every interaction taken in the organisation’s file system – everything from file edits, deletions, copies, downloads and more, and of course every action includes details on which user carried it out and from what location.
Enabling this level of detail of audit over a file system, companies can be assured that employees will be less likely to be involved in a data breach, whilst maintaining a high level of control over what happens to sensitive company data.
For many, the move towards a ‘zero trust architecture’ cannot come fast enough. However, this level of security needs to be applied consistently throughout the organisation. That includes a robust approach to user identification and authentication across enterprise-wide collaboration platforms. Data breaches, no matter what their origin, are getting more and more costly. The cost of technical remediation is often outweighed by long-term reputational damage, so it’s more important than ever to trust nothing and encrypt everything!