Operational Intelligence for MFT

Secure file sharing & content collaboration for users, IT and security

secure file sharing

In the recent research study conducted by Ponemon Institute, Ponemon surveyed over a thousand IT and security practitioners in North America, the United Kingdom, Germany and France. The purpose was for understanding secure file sharing and content collaboration practices in organizations. As well as what practices they were and should be taking to secure data without impeding the flow of information.

Secure file sharing & content collaboration

This has turned into the research report “Secure File Sharing & Content Collaboration for Users, IT and Security.” This is a look into how 1,371 IT and Security leaders balance the needs of users, security and managing unstructured data to meet corporate objectives.

While organizations feel that having a secure file sharing solution for accessing and sharing files securely, what is known in the market as content collaboration platforms, is essential for employee productivity. It was also clear that there are still concerns related to security. What was interesting is the need for strict security is challenging digital transformation. Read more about knocking down barriers with content collaboration in healthcare here.

Seventy percent of respondents feel that digital transformation is being challenged by the need for strict security safeguards. This is regarding protecting the sharing and the use of data that is sensitive and critical. And with 60% seeing the inability to enable free-flowing and sharing of information a barrier to achieving digital transformation.

Four key themes that emerged from the research

  • Risks in the file sharing and collaboration environment
  • Governance practices and technologies used to secure sensitive data
  • Features that improve the file sharing and collaboration environment
  • Achieving secure file sharing & content collaboration

The risks with file sharing and collaboration

According to the research, 44% of employees use file sharing and content collaboration solutions to store, edit and share content. This is in the normal course of business. And, 63 percent of participants believe it’s likely that their companies had a data breach in the last two years. This is because of insecure file sharing and content collaboration. This combined with only 39% percent of respondents rate their ability to keep sensitive content secure in the file sharing and collaboration environment as high.

What is at the root of the risks? One area that was identified is the amount of unstructured data within organizations. “The plethora of unstructured data makes managing the threats to sensitive information difficult,” says Dr. Larry Ponemon. On average, 53% percent of organizations’ sensitive data is unstructured and on average based on the research results, companies have 3 PB of unstructured data.

To compound the situation unstructured data is stored in multiple repositories, the most persistent is an e-mail with 23.4%, followed by data stored in shared network drives and now there is the addition of cloud-based file sharing services like Box and Dropbox.

Having unstructured data distributed across the enterprise in various silos makes it challenging for organizations to not only have visibility and control but to ensure policies are in place across all channels ensuring governance.

The data

The data from the survey aligns to what we’ve been seeing for the last several years at Syncplicity. Organizations are struggling to manage the increasing amounts of unstructured data across different silos–as highlighted by the research and providing a way to manage and secure all the unstructured data while giving end-users easy, seamless access.

Our most public success of around this is Siemens and their innovative approach to modernizing their infrastructure to power a digital workplace–that is secure and provides users with easy access to enterprise files.

Governance practices and technologies used to secure sensitive content

The report highlights that respondents are aware of the threats to their sensitive information but admit their governance practices and technologies should be more effective. One way to keep their sensitive content safe is by classifying the level of security by various attributes such as data usage; 62% of respondents highlighted data usage followed by the location of users.

One was identified by the research for securing sensitive content is controlling access and training users. However, only 42% control access, and only 33% of responders train users. There are a lot of opportunities for companies to improve governance practices by using technologies like granular group-based policies for easily establishing rules for access and sharing.

This also allows for training users on best practices and how to use the technologies. With 44% of respondents are going to invest in more user training, while a step in the right direction, training users might be one of the best ways to protect a company’s assets.

One of the benefits we offer our customers is our global Customer Success Team, who can help your organization train users on how to use Syncplicity for securely sharing files and folders–how to leverage password protection and other tools that empower your users to be secure corporate citizens.

Flexibility

While security is obviously a top priority, the respondents still want flexibility for their users. This is positive! Why? Because if users enjoy their corporate solution–it makes it a lot easier to convince them to use it.

A few features that these IT and security leaders identified as important, 70% agreed that the ability to securely collaborate with colleagues both inside and outside the organization, and 65% cited the ability to recover previous versions files immediately.

When it comes to providing control and security, Syncplicity offers organizations options based on their unique objectives. One thing that sets us apart in the market is the hybrid cloud.

We give organizations the ability to keep files on-premises for maximum control. This keeps other files sensitive or not in the cloud–the real critical piece is that where the files sit does not matter to the user, they always have one simple, single way to access folders and files. Read more here about Axway being named a “leader” in the Gartner Magic Quadrant.

Summary

In summary, we learned that an effective file sharing and content collaboration platform is a balance between security and user convenience. On November 7th, we got more insight from Dr. Larry Ponemon on the findings from the research report.

Learn more about content collaboration being a friend or foe here.