"One of our banks, Chase, recommended Virtru to us. We went to review the tool, to see how the implementation in our environment would be, and it was straightforward. We started with Virtru over a year ago, and we just renewed our subscription.”
Head of Information Security
Master Electronics is a global authorized distributor of electronic components that are used across a wide range of industries. Their products are used in a wide range of technologies, including medical devices, electric vehicle charging stations, cell phones, and aerospace equipment. With a 50-year history, this family-owned company started in a garage, and now operates at global scale, with over $600M in annual revenue.
As an essential part of many global supply chains, Master Electronics has a responsibility to ensure sensitive information remains protected at every part of its life cycle — which is why they use Virtru.
With Virtru, Master Electronics can:
Support CMMC 2.0 and ISO 9001 Compliance with end-to-end encryption, meanwhile advancing its journey toward ISO 27001 and SOC-2 compliance.
Send encrypted emails and files in Microsoft Outlook, without requiring recipients to install any software or create any new accounts.
Make external collaboration effortless and secure for executives, finance leaders, and human resources teams.
The Master Electronics team had exposure to Virtru long before becoming a Virtru customer: One of their banks, JPMorgan Chase, uses Virtru to send secure emails. As recipients of Chase secure emails, the Master Electronics team didn’t have to install any software, nor did they need to create any new usernames or passwords. Receiving sensitive information was straightforward, secure, and simple. This experience was helpful when it came time for Master Electronics to choose their own encrypted email solution.
“We were doing due diligence to find a secure email channel for our PII and banking information,” said Master Electronics’ head of information security. “One of our banks, Chase, recommended Virtru to us. We went to review the tool, to see how the implementation in our environment would be, and it was straightforward. We started with Virtru over a year ago, and we just renewed our subscription.”
“I remember the winning feature of Virtru, comparing it against everybody else: From the recipient side, there is no installation that needs to be done,” he said. “There is no login that needs to be created. And I like the way Virtru sets the encryption with the email ID. So, whoever receives encrypted email from a Virtru sender, they just need to confirm the ID by clicking on the link, and I know that has the decryption key, which is tied with the email ID. So, nobody else can decrypt that.”
“Then on top of that, is the after-controls from the admin side,” he said. “We can revoke any email, we can track and trace, and add a watermark so they cannot reuse the information communicated with the final destination.” These controls give the information security team clearer visibility, auditing, and risk management to ensure that the organization’s sensitive information remains protected.
Virtru also helps ensure that information can continue to flow in support of business operations. “There are a lot of environments — ours is one of them — where there are strict installation limits on the user side: They need to go to the IT department to install any tool,” he said. “So, with the other encryption products I was reviewing, I wanted to make sure it was not just secure, but I was also evaluating convenience for the people who are receiving our encrypted emails. With Virtru, they don’t need to install software, they don’t need to create a password or account. It’s only one click, and everything will be decrypted and controlled from our side.”
Because Virtru Secure Reader is platform-agnostic and available in any web browser, Master Electronics can confidently share information externally, knowing that the recipient won’t experience any roadblocks to accessing the information that’s been shared with them.
With Virtru, Master Electronics safeguards sensitive information flowing through several key areas of its business. “Our users are HR, finance, and executives,” he said. “For finance, it’s banking information. For HR, it’s PII data. For executives, they use Virtru to exchange the crown jewels of company information. From a cybersecurity perspective, I want to make sure sensitive data is traveling in an encrypted way to reduce any man-in-the-middle attacks, to reduce any data interception when it’s in transit.”
Because Master Electronics is a trusted partner in the supply chain across a wide variety of industries, it’s important to their team to demonstrate a commitment to data security and secure collaboration as information is shared between vendors and customers. “We are compliant with ISO 9001, and we are heading to CMMC 2.0, Level 1, so that is our main goal,” he said. “By the end of the year we will be compliant and we need to maintain that compliance because we do some business with the aerospace industry as well. The next level is ISO 27001 and SOC 2.”
“Our products are involved in many, many industries,” he said. “There are sensitive and critical industries where electronic pieces are being used.” By protecting sensitive data while collaborating with external partners, Master Electronics builds trust and solidifies its reputation as a leading partner across nearly every sector.