Can Your Remote Workforce Collaborate Securely?

Collaboration has always been a key to a successful business. Whether working on a project or sharing documents as part of standard business operations, numerous people need to see and act on information quickly.

While ad-hoc communication uses tools like Teams, Zoom, and Slack, most people collaborate through documents.

As organizations settle into new business norms, working remotely is very common for a lot of people. A recent analysis by leading research firm Gartner predicts that by the end of 2023, 48% of knowledge workers will work hybrid and fully remotely.

Hybrid workplaces require new methods of collaboration since employees and contractors may work a few days in the office and a few days remotely. They need to collaborate securely with colleagues, partners, and customers regardless of location to stay productive and meet deadlines and goals. While video chat and instant messaging let you communicate, most of us work together to complete a project or develop ideas using documents. You need to easily share documents, make sure everyone is working on the most recent version, and guarantee that only authorized users can see the information inside.

Deploying a collaboration platform on the fly is not something you can do overnight, since it costs both time and money. The fastest way to hit the ground running and share files without losing valuable time is to use a cloud-based system with a web interface. This keeps projects on track with minimal disruption.

A key ingredient to secure collaboration is not burdening your employees or third parties with making security decisions. Wrapsody eCo is a secure and reliable collaboration platform that encrypts all shared files and makes it easy to collaborate securely. By configuring workgroups with built-in policies and permission management, your employees continue to work without worrying if decisions don’t follow policy. You can set an expiration date for your projects or revoke access to documents immediately, which simplifies security for users. They have a job to do and don’t need to worry about setting security policies.

Users can easily create a workgroup for a project and define security parameters, like permissions on downloaded files or view access to a document in a browser. Project managers can invite employees, partners, and customers to the workgroup with a few clicks. As project members upload documents, they are automatically shared with the workgroup. Authorized users get real-time and email notifications of document changes so interested parties are informed immediately of updates. Each workgroup has a centralized policy making it easier to enforce security on all documents.

Sometimes members of a project team need to interactively review a document. Creating a quick video chat with all authorized users of the document is usually faster than typing into a chat or instant messaging window. Wrapsody eCo lets you connect your Zoom account so you can quickly schedule a meeting from within the portal and get your business done.

As people work from home, they may fall into bad habits like downloading documents from protected cloud applications to work on locally. This is especially true if they do it out of frustration because the internet is slow or they are having problems with their VPNs. That could lead to emailing files, only exacerbating unsafe data handling practices. Secure in the Wrapsody eCo environment, downloading documents locally is a non-issue. When a user downloads a file, they can only open it if they have access permissions. If someone accidentally sends the file to an unauthorized user, the unauthorized user cannot view the contents. Of course, if you send it to someone who should access it, they can easily request access.

Remote workers could be anywhere, not only working from home. With our current hybrid and mobile working environments, people time shift schedules and work almost anywhere and anytime. When collaborating it’s critical that project members work on the latest document. Finding and using the latest documents is always a problem since most of us use numerous devices and can’t always be sure what’s current.

If you update a financial spreadsheet, for example, you can’t work on an old version. With Wrapsody eCo, you always work on the current version. As soon as you update the file and close it, it automatically syncs to a central location. This works whether you are accessing the document on your work laptop, a home PC, or opening it from a cloud location. The next time you open it, you get the latest version, secure in the knowledge that your data is protected and only available to authorized users.

This even works on your mobile device. If you are running to a meeting or trying to catch up in an Uber, you can review the latest document on your phone or tablet. If you want to see a previous version, that’s as easy as a few taps.

Another problem with collaborating is making sure you get input from everyone. Rather than sending emails to everyone bugging them about reading the document and providing questions or updates, you can comment on the document and have it appear in real-time on people’s devices. You can also send a view alert to quickly bring it to everyone’s attention.

You can also review logs of user activity on the document. It tells you who viewed and edited the document and when. If someone edits a document locally or in a browser, the document updates to a new version upon saving it. If you need to retrieve an earlier version, it’s a click or tap away.

Working remotely has become standard for a lot of people. Collaborating securely and effectively can ease the burden and ensure your data security controls protect your most sensitive information. And that should give you peace of mind.

Learn more about how Wrapsody eCo makes it easy for your remote workforce to securely collaborate.

How to Ramp Up Your Remote Work Document Protection in 2022

Gartner predicted that roughly 50 % of knowledge workers worldwide should be logging in remotely by now. More remote work puts more sensitive data at risk, which increasingly also impacts manufacturing companies. Check out the following ten tips to ramp up your document protection program in 2022.

Quick question: What do automated ransomware campaigns conducted by external attackers have in common with data theft committed by corporate insiders?

In the light of recent incident reports, I can think of three answers off the bat – at a minimum:

In both categories, incidents are on the rise.
Both target sensitive data, since more ransomware attacks begin with stealing confidential documents for extortion or sale on the dark web before encrypting the victim’s data.
Both increasingly exploit work-from-home data security weaknesses.

Examples of the latter include unsecured WiFi networks, unmanaged devices, and endpoint vulnerabilities. At the same time, IT lacks visibility into the online activities of remote employees and contractors.

In a nutshell, this example shows how remote work has become the primary source of risk to digital assets in the enterprise. Now the Omicron variant is pushing even more organizations (back) into remote or hybrid work arrangements.

Additional factors exacerbate the crisis going into 2022. The automotive industry and its supply chains feel the impact. Key employees leverage the “Great Reset” in the industry and leave to join competitors, sometimes taking trade secrets with them. IT teams struggle with staff shortages and often only learn about what happened when it’s too late.

Does this sound familiar?

10 tips to boost your remote work document protection

Get ready for 2022 with our ten tips on how to protect unstructured data in remote work settings:

1. Identify the threat.

Beware intellectual property theft by insiders. In more than 50 % of documented IP theft cases, the perpetrators were current or former employees or contractors. In addition, when external attackers exfiltrate sensitive information, employee negligence often plays a role.

1. Identify what’s most at risk.

In most innovation-driven companies, trade secrets are stored in the form of unstructured data. Think confidential Microsoft Office documents, CAD/CAE files, digital images, or PDFs. They come in various (legacy) formats and are often scattered across the organization and along its supply chain. Securing them will be an uphill battle, especially in remote work environments, without the right strategy.

1. Identify your data protection strategy.

The push into remote and hybrid work environments requires a comprehensive approach to data protection, rather than merely a mix of device-centric endpoint and data loss prevention (DLP) solutions. Recognizing this, more technology companies are adopting a data-centric security model.

With sensitive documents, this means they remain protected regardless of where a file resides or with whom it is shared. The data-centric model ensures document protection independently of networks, servers, locations, and devices, such as unmanaged home office printers.

1. Protect data throughout its lifecycle.

Digital Right Management (DRM, sometimes also referred to as Information Rights Management, IRM) is based on the data-centric security model at the core of any Zero Trust strategy. Fasoo Enterprise DRM (EDRM) enables organizations to persistently protect, control and track sensitive documents at rest, in transit, and in use. Encryption, flexible policies, and granular controls govern how and by whom a file can be viewed, edited, printed, and shared within the organization’s IT perimeter and outside – like in the home office.

1. Protect sensitive files without exceptions.

Does the Enterprise DRM solution you’re evaluating support all industry-relevant CAD and CAE applications? In the automotive industry, support for tools such as AutoCAD, CATIA, or PTC Creo (and many more) and a broad range of PDF file formats is considered essential to ensure future-proof document protection.

1. Protect workflows and productivity.

Some information protection solutions lack centralized policy management. This shortcoming is known to slow down workflows to a trickle, especially when remote contributors are involved. Fasoo combines central control options with flexible exception management. Exception approval for accessing particular documents from the home office, for example, can be delegated to managers or coworkers instead of waiting for IT.

1. Control confidential data wherever it goes.

A supplier’s design engineer working from home is requesting remote access to sensitive documents? With Enterprise DRM, it’s just another day in the office. Gartner analysts describe DRM as “one of the only mechanisms for retaining control of unstructured data transferred to business partners in secure collaboration scenarios.”

1. Control print.

Fasoo takes a printer-agnostic approach to secure printing. This approach eliminates most challenges that commonly arise in remote work environments with home printers or print drivers. It enables data owners to centrally set and manage print rules for printing on-premises or remotely and watermark unauthorized printouts. Fasoo Smart Print also lets you set print protection policies for plain documents not secured by EDRM.

1. Control the screen.

Concerned about a remote team member capturing sensitive data on a screen during an internal Zoom or Skype call presentation? Enterprise DRM provides a screen security component, Fasoo Smart Screen, enabling IT to block and monitor screen capture attempts. For deterrence, it can also imprint documents with a watermark that contains tell-tale user-specific information.

1. Control data without alienating workers.

Fasoo’s centralized policy management enables flexible, people-centric document protection across organizational boundaries. Everyone who needs to can keep tabs on documents’ whereabouts and protection status, without risking privacy complaints and lawsuits from home office workers. Fasoo Enterprise DRM integrates with all leading federated authentication services, enabling IT to automatically revoke access to EDRM-protected documents once an employee leaves.

Contact the Fasoo team and find out how others in your industry deploy Enterprise DRM in remote and hybrid work environments.

How Can Your Remote Workforce Collaborate Securely?

Never has there been a better litmus test for seeing how agile your business is than responding to a pandemic. A recent survey by leading research firm Gartner confirmed that most businesses will shift some employees to remote work permanently as a result of COVID-19. Even from home, employees need to collaborate securely with colleagues, partners and customers to stay productive and meet deadlines and goals. While video chat and instant messaging lets you communicate, a lot of collaboration is through documents. Ideally you want to easily share documents, make sure everyone is working on the most recent version, and be able to securely manage all your projects. With the major shift to working at home, the time to double down on data security is now.

Deploying a collaboration environment on the fly is not something you can do overnight, since it costs both time and money. The fastest way to hit the ground running and share files without losing valuable time is to use a cloud-based system with a web interface. This keeps projects on track with minimal disruption.

A key ingredient to secure collaboration is not burdening your employees or third parties with making security decisions. Wrapsody eCo is a secure and reliable collaboration platform that encrypts all shared files and makes it easy to collaborate securely. By configuring workgroups with built-in policies and permission management, your employees continue to work without worrying if decisions don’t follow policy. You can also set an expiration date for your projects or revoke access to documents immediately, which simplifies security for users. They have a job to do and don’t need to worry about setting security policies.

Users can easily create a workgroup for a project and define security parameters, like permissions on downloaded files or view access to a document in a browser. Project managers can invite employees, partners and customers to the workgroup with a few clicks. As project members upload documents, they are automatically shared with the workgroup. Each workgroup has a centralized policy making it easier to enforce security on all documents.

As people work from home, they may fall into bad habits like downloading documents from protected cloud applications to work on locally. This is especially true if they do it out of frustration because the internet is slow or they are having problems with their VPNs. That could also lead to emailing files, only exacerbating unsafe data handling practices. Secure in the Wrapsody eCo environment, downloading documents locally is a non-issue. When a user downloads a file, they can only open it if they have access permissions. If someone accidentally sends the file to an unauthorized user, it is still protected because the unauthorized user will not be able to view the contents.

The other challenge with collaboration is ensuring project members are working on the latest document. If you are updating a financial spreadsheet, for example, you can’t work on an old version. With Wrapsody eCo, you always work on the current version. As soon as you update the file and close it, it automatically syncs to a central location. The next time you open it, you get the latest version, secure in the knowledge that your data is protected and only available to authorized users.

Working remotely may become standard for a lot people. Collaborating securely and effectively can ease the burden and ensure your data security controls protect your most sensitive information. And that should give you peace of mind.

Photo Credit: Graeme Butler

Pandemic Sent Your Workers Home? Reminders for Best Data Security Practices

Overnight, companies across the globe were forced into a fully remote workforce. If you are prepared, under the best of circumstances, it can still be a challenge, but if you are not, the challenges are even greater and some things can potentially fall through the cracks. People working from home can lead to a few unintended bad habits. With business continuity being the priority, data is even more at risk as hackers and thieves see opportunity when your guard is down.

For companies that don’t have tools in place, and for that matter, those that don’t have the right tools in place, here are some things you can do while ensuring the health of your employees, and your business stays on track.

Reiterate document handling policies – remind workers creating documents of data classification schemes and to encrypt whenever possible for sensitive data. When in doubt, encrypt.
Remind your work-at-home staff of your security awareness training (SAT) (if you have a program in place) – there have been lots of reports of phishing and other types of scams going on because bad people will take advantage of the population when vulnerable. Ensure your employees know how to identify these things, whether you have programs in place or not.
Data sharing across email – it is always a best practice to remind workers that care be taken when sending an email with unprotected documents attached – double-check who is in the “To” and that appropriate protection is applied to what is sent.
Working in cloud applications – the clogged and slow internet may have some workers pulling documents out of the application to work on locally. And for the sake of expedience, some of these documents may be sent through email (see the previous comment), shared on a Zoom or Teams video conference, or remain on a local drive or in a folder, exposed to theft from outsiders.
Ensure your Wifi has a strong password and that your computers have anti-virus software installed – for the unprepared, some workers may be working on their personal laptops or desktops, may not have a VPN, may not have renewed the free anti-virus software installed, because “that will never happen to me”, and may not have created a strong Wifi password when first setting up their internet connection. Now might be the time to ask them to change passwords and check licenses on security software.
Printing – discourage printing sensitive information on home printers. While there isn’t much you can do to prevent this and foster secure printing, discouraging workers from printing sensitive documents locally and encouraging them to work in the applications. Besides, it is good for the environment (save a tree).

While all of these might seem like motherhood and apple pie, they are just good reminders at a time when things happen so fast.

Photo by Kate

Blog

Can Your Remote Workforce Collaborate Securely?

How to Ramp Up Your Remote Work Document Protection in 2022

10 tips to boost your remote work document protection

Contact the Fasoo team and find out how others in your industry deploy Enterprise DRM in remote and hybrid work environments.

How Can Your Remote Workforce Collaborate Securely?

Pandemic Sent Your Workers Home? Reminders for Best Data Security Practices