Cybersecurity Leader
As a global leader in cyber threat intelligence, this company handles highly sensitive data on a daily basis. Thus, it’s not surprising to learn that their IT team has implemented robust security controls for purposes of governing identities, endpoints, networks, and applications. And given their level of cyber sophistication, it’s not surprising to learn how they took additional strategic steps in 2023 to further strengthen their Zero Trust security posture by embracing data-centric policies and granular controls on sensitive data flowing in and out of the business via email, file, and SaaS workflows.
Inside of the company, the initiative was called “Data Accountability” and according to the company’s cyber security leader, it was “priority one” for everyone in the business, from the CEO on down. Specifically, the goal was to overhaul their data storage, transmission, and sharing policies to improve accountability. This included expanding their classification program to tag different data sensitivity levels, and enforcing stricter controls around customer data.
To accomplish this new goal, a key ask from this organization’s internal research group was client-side encryption for Google Drive, since existing free tools were too complex.
“[CSE for Google Drive] is free for a reason,” he said. “It works and it doesn't work sometimes. You have a lot of engineering. So we had to kind of escalate that to find a key partner."
They needed a solution that made data-centric security easy to use without disrupting employee workflows or requiring extensive training. Ease of use was critical, as "the number one way to lose your audience is to bring on a tool that's too challenging."
Virtru provided the right balance of security and usability with Virtru for Gmail, Virtru Private Keystore for Google Workspace CSE (client-side encryption), and Virtru Secure Share. Key features that supported the organization’s data accountability goals included:
All of these capabilities allowed this organization to extend data-centric protections beyond Google Drive to other collaboration apps. Employees could easily track data access and revoke permissions if needed to enforce internal data policies.
With Virtru, this organization consolidated multiple disjointed file sharing systems into one cohesive platform with stronger controls. With this proactive approach to data accountability, this organization is demonstrating what a full-spectrum Zero Trust security transformation looks like — and differentiating themselves against competitors.
