Virtru Academy Live: Secure Share for End Users

[00:00:00]

Steven Margolies: So for today's agenda. First off, my name is Steven Margolies. I'm the Senior Director of Customer Support. I'm going to cover Secure Share, but also really, what is Virtru as a whole? Why is it important? How you're going to be using Secure Share, how to get support when needed, and then again, the Q&A at the end for any questions you might have. 

So first off, high level, what is Virtru? We are an email and file encryption solution that gives users full control over their sensitive data. We help customers keep data secure and stay compliant with major privacy regulations such as HIPAA for us, etc. Using Virtru, you can encrypt emails and files to ensure that you stay compliant with regulations, as failure can lead to large fines. 

It limits the risk of a data breach, whether as a part of your security solution or another layer that maintains control over your data and ensures only authorized recipients access that content. And it helps you maintain trust. Obviously, a breach or a compliance violation undermines the trust with your own customers, and reputational fallouts have economic fallout as well. 

So this is just a high-level overview of some scenarios we see. If you have any questions about when to best use Virtru, make sure to talk to your internal administrators. But common use cases we see across our user base: we have those in health and services dealing with PII, PHI, trying to meet HIPAA compliance. Those in the police and fire space with case reports, investigations, criminal justice information, and the courts as well. When you're talking about criminal justice, anything with children and families with their PII, personal financial data, social security. So again, you talk about someone's financial information, and then HR organizations also like to use this to share often confidential information or private information. 

So how can you use Virtru? This is going to be the bulk of today's presentation. In a moment I will jump into a live demo. And what we're going to cover is how to access Secure Share, sending, requesting files, viewing content, the recipient experience, and other additional tips and tricks. 

The first thing you'll need to do is simply head to Secure Share. I have the link saved, but it is simply secure.virtru.com/secureshare, and you'll be redirected to our login screen where you can see Secure Share. You'll select your email address, hit continue, and then you'll have options on how to verify. So if you're Google, you can either use Google or a verification email flow. Microsoft organizations will have a sign-in with Microsoft option. But if you're something else, maybe a Yahoo or AOL or something, you might just need to use the verification method. 

And once you sign in, you will typically land on the outbound sharing section, which is where you can begin immediately to share files. So if you have some content you want to share, there are a few different ways you can upload that content. There's a dropdown where you can usually select files from your local device. If your organization has it enabled, you can also select files directly from your Google Drive. And we also offer the ability to select files from Microsoft OneDrive and SharePoint. Which options you see here will depend on which options your administrators have requested. The final option is just to simply drag and drop, which is what I'll do here. So I'll take a couple of files and drop them in here and you'll see it get started. 

[00:05:00]

Steven Margolies: And once they're encrypted, you'll get the green checkmark. The next step, you can apply security settings to this share. So you could put on maybe an expiration date. Let's go with one month. And if you want, you can watermark the files if they're compatible file types, where when the viewer sees it, it will require that they view the file in Virtru on the web, and it will have their email address across the face of the document. Persistent File Protection also requires that all content is viewed in our Secure Reader. 

Once you've selected the file security settings that you want, you proceed to the final stage where you share. So we'll put some recipients in here. I'm just going to share the one at this point. Once your recipients populate, you'll see it change to this pill look. You can put a subject in here. 

And if you want, you can also send a message. When you're doing this message, you have the option to encrypt this content as well. So the files will always be encrypted, but the message, any text you add to that, will not always be encrypted. So if you want to encrypt that content and make it only accessible once they verify their identity and have entered the portal, then you can definitely click encrypt message. Once ready, you can hit share. 

You will then land on your Message Summary page where you can see the security settings, the recipients, and the content itself. If you need to view that content, you can. You can also manage the share. So if you wanted to change something, change the files, change the settings, change the recipients, you can. Or if you wanted to, you could also just revoke the content here. 

Additionally, when you share, you will get an email confirmation on your end. So you can see I shared content to this address where I can go click on Manage Files and land on that same Message Summary page. 

On the recipient side, you can see they get an email. This is the text I put in. I did not encrypt it. And then we do list the file names. Then to access the content, they'll hit view files. They can either select or enter their email address. If the recipient list has many email addresses, then we're immediately going to drop them into the manual entry field. Or maybe if you're the sender and you have that link for some reason, you can also use that. But click on that. 

This time I'll show you the verification flow. So they get to this page by checking their inbox, and they can either just click the link in the email or use the code. I'll just quickly find the verification email and click sign in. But again, there's a code in here. It takes them back to Secure Share where they can see the security settings. They can see the contents of this. Because it's watermarked, they only have a view option right now, and it goes to the Secure Reader for viewing. 

And you can see the watermarking puts the email address of the viewer across the face of the document. If I decide I don't want to watermark it, I can go in here as the sender, turn off that watermarking, complete those changes, and now if they go back into that content, there are options to download the content. 

[00:10:00]

Steven Margolies: Additionally, you don't just share content outbound. You can also request content coming inbound. So there are a few different ways to go about this. One is I can send a direct request link, so I can select the user as the recipient. I can put a subject line, and if I want, some additional messaging. If I hit request here, that recipient will get an email with a send files link. And what they can then do is click on that. Again, they'll have sign-in options to send those files. 

Now I do want to note, I'm going to send another one out. That experience was shown with another internal user. A lot of you will be sending things externally. So I'm going to send another request to an external mailbox. All right, this is just a simple Gmail. So when I click on this and I click on send files, once I log in, because I'm not in the organization, I don't have the same side panel. Rather, I go directly to the sharing screen and not to a screen that shows all of the options here, like Share, Request, or History. 

Similarly, I will send a file there so you can see what that end looks like. If you don't do a subject, that's okay. They'll get a generic email that just says you received content, so-and-so shared files with you. View files. And again, once we're in here, we have that slimmed-down view as a non-Virtru customer. 

Also, in requesting content, you don't have to only send emails. Maybe you have a link that you want to place somewhere, maybe in your signature. So you can copy this link and what that allows you to do is paste that really anywhere, embed it anywhere you want. So that's what it looks like. We also have an option to embed the code on your website where we give you the embed code for HTML, and that's what that will look like. So these are just some quick links that you can really set up anywhere that you might want to have users sending files back to you. So again, commonly users will put this in their messenger, or if they have a certain website form that they want users to send content to, you can use these links. 

You also might see that I have different options in the receiving mailbox. So if your organization has performed what's called a sync with Virtru, we can also allow you to request files back to an alias or a group address. But again, it depends on how your administrators have set up your settings. But you have the option to change which mailbox will actually receive that content when content is shared back. And we'll show you what that looks like. 

Those external parties will have the same settings typically. And depending on how structured the screen is, it might just kind of look different. When someone uses a request link, the recipient field is automatically filled out, as well as the subject line. But they can add a message. And then they get a Message Summary. They get an email receipt with a link to their files. And then you get the email saying that some user used the link. You can view the files, and you can just view a file. 

[00:15:00]

Steven Margolies: If it's a compatible file type, you can download them locally. Depending on your configuration, you might see a save to Google Drive option or a save to OneDrive or SharePoint option. Again, those are administrative controls, just like on the file sharing flow. You might also see that this particular download locally option has been removed if your administrator requested that. 

Another great thing about Secure Share is that we do have a History page. So you can actually go to a single page in Secure Share to find a listing of all content sent to and from your particular email address in your account. So you can see a couple of the things I did here. This is what I sent out, and this is one coming in. And if you're in this view, if it's something that you own, that you sent, you can quickly revoke it or go to that Message Summary if you need to edit it. Or if it's something that you received, you can just get a quick link to viewing that content. 

Another thing I do want to call out is we do have the compatibility to become a progressive web app. Typically, you're doing this in your browser, but you can install it locally, so it sort of acts like its own application. It'll be on my other screen, but here you can see versions of shares in an application I could pin to my toolbar. And I can actually do everything here. It's its own little self-hosted experience. I can do sharing, requesting, or any of those other flows. 

I also want to call out one other thing about restrictions. Administrators, in addition to setting up upload and download sources, can also request custom restrictions for your organization. These can be both outbound and inbound, or either or. It depends on what the administrator wants. But we allow the restriction of certain file types, file counts per share session, and file size. Administrators can also request that watermarking be automatically enabled or just not available. An expiration could be set to a certain setting or, again, not available. Persistent File Protection can be locked on or not available. So we have these options. It does require that your administrator complete a custom branding configuration with Virtru, but those are available. So you might see prompts like this during the share phases if restrictions are configured either by your administrator or by another party if you're talking with another Virtru customer. 

I mentioned this in a couple of calls in this session, but we offer the ability to upload directly from Google Drive, OneDrive, or SharePoint, as well as downloading directly to those sources, and the ability to even disable download. These are all administrative requests regarding whether or not they're going to be enabled for your team, some of our integrations, as well as that future product we have coming. 

[00:20:00]

Steven Margolies: We have a few different integrations that can actually hook directly into some of your cloud storage systems. So if you are a Google customer with Google Drive, we have an add-on which can actually go directly into your drive interface. That way, if you select a file in Google Drive, you can click on this, and it just kind of shortens that experience to drop that file directly into that Secure Share flow we were just looking at. Similarly, for SharePoint and OneDrive, we have an add-on that you can get. When you right-click a file or select a file, you can select Secure Share, where it will automatically grab that file from your cloud storage solution and drop it into that share flow. These are simply installed by administrators. 

These two cloud storage offerings do require permissions to allow Virtru access into your Drive or OneDrive. Whether it's the integrations or even the other flows we're looking at from the Secure Share web application, you will need to give permissions, or you might need your administrator to grant permissions for you to interact with your storage environment. 

We also have a Zendesk integration. Now this one's a little different. It doesn't mimic the full experience that you just saw today. It gives you a tool, if you are a Zendesk-using organization, to quickly share and request directly in your ticketing system. Any files and requests for the external party will go through the flow you just saw for the recipient flow. But for your internal users that have Zendesk, they can do the sharing and the requesting directly in the Zendesk portal. 

And then, coming later this year, we do have a new product called Secure Enclave. I'm going to play a short video, just kind of a quick high-level overview and teaser on that product that, again, will be coming later this year. 

Video Playback: Store and share sensitive files exactly as your business demands. Virtru Secure Enclave is purpose-built for defense contractors and regulated industries, delivering secure workspaces to protect CUI while enabling confident collaboration. Because protection is embedded into the file itself, data remains under your control at all times, even when shared with external parties. Granular, context-aware access controls adapt in real time, ensuring only the right people can access the right data under the right conditions. You no longer have to choose between data security and productive collaboration. Virtru Secure Enclave delivers both collaboration freedom and complete data control. 

Steven Margolies: So again, just a little teaser, but we are going to really expand this product out and give you more use cases and kind of that whole repository experience to make sharing even easier and open up more workflows. 

So how to get support? If something does go wrong, there are a couple of different methods to get support. The first is self-serve. Our Help Center has a lot of content aimed specifically at you as the end user. So when you get to the Help Center, you can see there's a Virtru for Users section where if you go to Secure Share, you can click on a lot of how-to guides, some troubleshooting articles, anything that you might need. But if you do get stuck, there is the option to contact us. You can see Contact Support in the top right corner of the Help Center view, where you can submit a ticket with details about what you're experiencing or an earlier question, and we'd be happy to help you. 

Thank you all for joining. I hope you all have a great day.