With Google Client-side encryption (CSE) for Google Workspace and CSE for Gmail and Calendar, enterprises can collaborate and share information more securely than ever before. The development of Google Workspace CSE marks the first time that users can encrypt and decrypt data stored within Google’s native file types (Docs, Sheets, and Slides), as well as Google Meet, Google Calendar, and Gmail. This is also the first time that they can shield all that data from Google, with the help of an encryption key management provider.
To take advantage of Google Workspace Client-side encryption, you need to select a Google-authorized key management partner. Here are a few ways that Virtru rises above the competition to enable your organization to securely share data within Google Workspace.
1. We are cloud-native, with deep expertise in the Google ecosystem.
We are your trusted guide to all things Google Cloud.
Virtru is more than just a key management partner: We are experts in the Google ecosystem, and a longstanding Google partner. We were Google’s first recommended encryption provider, and we continue to work closely alongside Google’s team to drive the future of data privacy within its platforms.
The other key management providers either offer key management services alone, or key management systems with limited email protection capabilities. Virtru is the only one with deep expertise across all of Workspace — including Gmail and Google Drive, as well as Google Meet. Plus, Virtru was built for collaboration in the cloud. For nearly a decade, we have focused on cloud enablement, equipping our customers to make use of world-class tools while ensuring their data remains secure.
As one of Virtru's customers puts it, Virtru is "super seamless." Here's an excerpt from their use case, HR Tech Innovator Maki Uses Virtru Private Keystore for Advanced Google Cloud Security.
Doing its due diligence, Maki reached out to three vendors: Virtru, Thales, and Fortanix. The Virtru Private Keystore proved to be the solution that was most reliable, easy to deploy, and affordable.
Chino experienced a lot of friction with the other key management vendors. After reaching out to one, he got no response. With the other vendor, “Implementation was pretty complicated… We got a trial version, and we had bugs in that version.”
“With Virtru, it was straightforward,” said Chino. “We contacted you, you answered. We hopped on a call, and then implementation was easy as 1, 2, 3. So that was great.” Within two weeks of contacting Virtru and implementing the Private Keystore with Virtru’s deployment team, Maki was up and running.
Virtru is fast and easy to work with, making Virtru the partner that can help you drive your cloud strategy forward, within Google Workspace and beyond.
2. We are the only CSE key management partner that offers automatic granular access controls.
We help you protect your data with automatic granular access controls.
What makes Virtru stand out from all other Google Workspace CSE key management providers is our comprehensive approach to data-centric security. Not only do we offer robust encryption and key management for your Workspace data, but we also empower you to apply tailored access controls using your custom labels. This means your sensitive information stays shielded from unauthorized access, no matter where it resides within your system.
With Virtru, you can seamlessly use your Google Workspace labels to categorize documents and enforce access controls. Leveraging your Google Workspace groups, we enable precise access permissions, ensuring that only authorized individuals can access specific files. Even as files are moved to other Drives or folders, Virtru ensures persistent protection, safeguarding your data throughout its lifecycle.
Virtru is the only Google Workspace CSE key management partner to offer this level of granular access control for your data, making Virtru an easy choice for your encryption needs.
3. We offer the same consistent, integrated framework (including key management) for client-side encryption within Google—plus Microsoft and third-party apps.
We help you protect your data, everywhere it lives, according to the highest security standards.
If you’re building a long-term data protection strategy with Google, you can lower your total cost of ownership by leveraging Virtru. Once you’re set up with the Virtru Private Keystore, you can easily and quickly deploy that same Google Workspace data protection within Gmail, as well—creating a holistic, consistent approach to protecting data however and wherever it’s shared.
We are also well-positioned to grow alongside Google as it expands its offerings, and we plan to support and enable new data security features as they become available. Because we closely integrate with Google’s tools as they grow and evolve, Virtru is a sustainable choice for data protection.
If you have a hybrid workforce, or hybrid cloud environment, you can also use Virtru across those environments without concern for interoperability: We protect data shared across the Google ecosystem as well as in Microsoft Office 365, and our Data Protection Gateway safeguards data that flows through enterprise SaaS applications like Salesforce, SAP, Zendesk, and Workday. If you need to share large files outside of Google Drive, you can also leverage Virtru Secure Share for encrypted, large encrypted file transfer up to 15 GB, natively within your browser.
4. We are wholly committed to a simplified, user-friendly experience.
Get the most out of collaboration in Google Meet, Docs, Sheets, and Slides without sacrificing usability.
You and your teams already love to use Google’s collaboration apps. Now, you can use them with the confidence that they’re secure—and Virtru makes it easy.
Virtru has always prioritized intuitive design and ease of use, and these priorities are well-aligned with Google’s approach to creating a seamless, user-friendly product experience. Our intuitive interface is one of the top reasons our customers choose us — if you read Virtru case studies, you’ll find that almost every one references ease of use as a key factor in why they selected Virtru’s encrypted data protection.
With Virtru, key management, data protection, and administration are straightforward, and we provide organizations with a positive onboarding experience, fast deployment, easy authentication through Google, and seamless user experience for admins, users, and recipients.
5. We equip you to maintain exclusive, persistent control of your own data—including the autonomy to revoke or change access controls at any time.
You never lose control of your data, and neither Google nor Virtru can see it.
Virtru has always advocated for complete data privacy, equipping our customers to selectively choose who can access their information—and giving them the ability to change their mind about that access at any time. For the most comprehensive security, we believe the data owner should be in charge of their own data, at all times, even after it’s been shared - regardless of your cloud provider.
We are proud to bring this capability to life within Google’s collaborative tools, making them more widely available to those who handle extremely sensitive data, while still ensuring you maintain control and data sovereignty, at all times. In fact, not only are we the only key management partner that offers automatic label-based access controls, but we are the only partner that double-wraps your data encryption keys in an additional layer of protection, so not even Virtru can access them. You have total control over your own encryption keys.
6. We secure every piece of data across the full lifecycle, from creation to storing and sharing, and beyond.
There’s never a moment that your sensitive data goes unprotected.
Virtru and Google Client-side encryption complement each other for full data protection across the entire data lifecycle, from the moment it’s created, to file collaboration, to sharing, exporting files into other workflows, and beyond.
We believe that you should be able to collaborate with confidence—and that data security shouldn’t mean limiting the ways you can share your data. Virtru’s Trusted Data Format (TDF) open standard, which underpins our secure data-sharing offerings, wraps each piece of data in its own layer of encryption that travels and stays with the data, everywhere it goes.
Breaches and accidental violations are growing at an ever-increasing rate, even though cybersecurity spend is at an all time high. It’s time for organizations to take a different approach to protecting their most vital assets: Focus on data-centric protection and give your organization the control, visibility and agility it needs to navigate an evolving threat environment.
To learn more about how Virtru can partner with your organization to secure your data in Google Workspace, download our data sheet on Enhancing Data-Centric Security with Key Management, and check out our comprehensive post on Google Client-Side Encryption for Workspace.
Ready to get started? Contact us to start the conversation.
