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By Cuneyt Baris / September 18, 2017

Equifax Debacle Shows the Need For Data Security is Stronger Than Ever

Nearly half of the United States had their sensitive information exposed when hackers breached the credit reporting agency. Reports estimate this to be 143 million customers who have had their confidential information stolen. This is being reported as the worst leak in history. In addition, Equifax is now being investigated by multiple government agencies, including the FTC. While they try to blame open source software vulnerabilities, it was reported that cyber security professionals had given them warning of their susceptibility, up to two months before they were hit. While this may have been the worst breach, it is not the first. It seems every month, another major corporation has failed to protect its customer's private data. It is past time that businesses started taking cyber security seriously, rather than just an afterthought. This includes all aspects of cyber security, network, infrastructure and data. Secrata is the most secure way for enterprise to secure their companies and in turn, their customers, data. Secrata’s patented technology provides unmatched security at the data layer, flexible deployment, support for existing workflows and easy integration with 3rd party applications and security infrastructure. Blog Post Written By: Cuneyt Baris, Secrata Assistant Product/Project Manager

By admin / June 6, 2017

Take a Holistic View When Planning Your Cyber Defenses

Health and Human Services (HHS) released 6 imperatives for healthcare providers and ancillary enterprises to follow when dealing with sensitive documentation. For the most part, the concepts laid out by HHS are for the good of the industry as a whole. They encourage sharing of threats, increasing funding towards security awareness, increasing funding towards security infrastructure, and general guidance on improving a data security posture industry-wide. It is refreshing to see such a stance from HHS. After the recent WannaCry attacks, there is increased scrutiny around medical cybersecurity needs, and the recommendations put forth by HHS will begin a transition to a network that can mitigate these incidents before such a sweeping attack can take place. There is additional concern about the theft of data, in particular patient data, which is rife with personally identifiable information (PII). This sensitive information must be protected with every available measure, as with HIPPAA violations, any data-loss is unacceptable. The HHS report stops short of recommending solutions for individual practices, but there is certainly room to extrapolate a product or group of products that would satisfy the 6 imperatives laid out. First of all, a coherent plan must be designed and implemented throughout the organization. A CISO cannot simply piecemeal a data security plan together one product at a time, but rather should take a top-down look at how the organization operates, identify strengths and weaknesses of the existing plan, and take action holistically rather than applying bandaids in one-off fixes. Planning for success in mitigating cyber threats is no different than planning for success in other endeavors. In this case, an ounce of prevention is worth considerably more than a pound of cure.

By admin / May 12, 2017

How Can My Data Be Hacked?

By admin / April 6, 2017

Secrata Product Sneak Peak

The Secrata engineering team has been hard at work preparing for the latest and greatest Secrata release. As we approach our GA date we would like to give a sneak peek at some of the latest and greatest features and tools that Secrata will have to offer.

Secrata workspaces can be used to support many different workflows. One of the most popular requests that we get is for the ability to create ‘read-only’ files so that other workspace members cannot make unauthorized changes. Secrata is preparing to launch a file locking feature that will allow users to lock files such that no other user can delete, edit or otherwise modify the file. This feature is sure to be a hit with project managers who wish to share project timeline details with their teams, or with product trainers who are sharing training documents with new employees. We would love to hear how your team could benefit from this granular file locking control. Transferring large batches of files has always been supported in Secrata, but with the new prioritization feature, web users can quickly choose which files they need transferred first, and which files can wait until the end. This feature will help with users under tight time restrictions who need to quickly get files into the Secrata platform.

File Management is about to get a whole lot easier. Secrata is developing a mechanism to allow users to copy and paste their files around to other folders or other Secrata workspaces. Users wishing to move files between workspaces had previously needed to upload new versions of those files to the new workspaces. Secrata’s copy and paste functionality makes that whole process significantly simpler. As always, Secrata allows you to manage any file type, and also handles very large files. The upcoming Secrata release is our most exciting release yet, and we can’t wait to get it out the door and into the hands of our customers. Blog Post Written By: Matt Seto, Secrata Product Manager

By admin / March 10, 2017

The Need for Administrator Control

As more and more organizations flock to the cloud for their file storage and sharing needs, an IT dilemma is beginning to form. The need to access shared documents across users, devices, and locations is quickly presenting a security threat to organizations. This represents a nightmare for enterprise IT staff. Once upon a time, all of your company’s documents and files were kept in-house, but with the flock to cloud services, BYOD environments, and distributed environments a need is quickly emerging to maintain administrative control over a variety of endpoints and networks. [caption id="attachment_1579" align="alignleft" width="300"]

Secrata Administrators can run audit reports on their systems[/caption] Secrata helps to bridge the gap between disparate hardware, systems, or networks. Secrata administrators maintain control over the file service to ensure that only appropriate users can access the Secrata platform. Using Secrata Administrator tools, you can audit a user’s actions to maintain total visibility into your Secrata instance. This level of granular administrative visibility ensures that Secrata admins have a path to audit potential data breaches, security threats, or just to run routine audits. Increasing administrator controls is a priority for the Secrata team as we develop our product roadmap. Presenting granular permissions controls and enhanced user management tools. Topia Technology would be happy to hear about administrator features that your organization could benefit from. Blog Post Written By: Matt Seto, Secrata Product Manager

By admin / February 3, 2017

Secrata Collaboration Spaces

Team collaboration is a big deal. As a Product Manager at Topia Technology, I work hard to ensure that our entire team is on the same page as we move forward. We write proposals, business requirements, product spec sheets, test plans, deployment strategies, and many more documents for every project that we undertake. Keeping these documents organized is integral to maintaining our release targets. Secrata is a great tool for keeping your files organized and in one place for your project. Using Secrata workspaces and folders, you can invite all of your project colleagues to manage and store project files in a unified location. Employees can make edits to project files and upload new versions to the workspace to ensure that all of your project documentation is up-to-date and current. No more dealing with multiple document versions on different computers. With Secrata workspaces you always know where the latest document version is, and you can always get a copy of it! [caption id="attachment_1560" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] A Secrata Workspace

All of your collaborators can access your Secrata workspace to share files and messages[/caption] The power of Secrata workspaces is multiplied when you consider that workspace can be shared with users outside of your IT infrastructure. Coordinating projects with multiple organizations is streamlined when all users have access to the same collaboration space. With Secrata workspaces, IT departments don’t need to create and manage new user accounts for internal network. If you like, Secrata can exist entirely without the need for IT departments to onboard new users or manage accounts for your collaborators. Your Secrata workspaces are always secured by Secrata’s patented chunking-and-encrypting technology, which ensures that your data is impervious to SSL and TLS exploits. Have the convenience of sharing all of your files, and rest assured that your sensitive information remains secure with Secrata. Blog Post Written By: Matt Seto, Secrata Product Manager

By admin / January 26, 2017

Secrata Workspaces, More Than Just Files!

Secrata prides itself on being the most secure way to secure and send files to users both inside and outside of your network. Secrata also prides itself on being the easiest way to send those files. On the surface, you simply create a workspace, invite some friends and share some files. But Secrata is much more powerful once you dig into some of its features. The Topia Technology blog will keep you updated on some of these handy new features, as well as point out some of the use cases that set Secrata apart from the competition. Secrata Workspaces are more than just folders for holding files. The workspace message board is a great way to communicate with coworkers within the context of your project. More importantly, the messages in the workspace message board are secured with the same encryption as the rest of your Secrata files, meaning you can be assured that nobody is reading your messages.

At Topia Technology, we use Secrata workspaces to communicate with users outside of our IT infrastructure in a secure way. Sometimes our Secrata workspaces are used to send executable files and other programs, using the workspace message board we can give instruction and guidance on how to use these programs. The workspace message board allows you to give guidance in context of the shared files, without having to send separate instruction documents through email or some other communication method. Workspace messages exist for the entire life of the workspace. You can onboard new employees and share relevant workspaces with them. They can navigate all old workspace messages and get caught up on workspace actions to help for quicker onboarding. The workspace message board has many other use cases, maybe your organization has found a different workflow that uses the message board in a new and novel way. We would love to hear about any ideas you have. Blog Post Written By: Matt Seto, Secrata Product Manager

By admin / January 17, 2017

Sharing Sensitive Files Should Be Secure, But Not Hard

Sharing your sensitive files with your coworkers and clients can be dangerous. Every day there are more security flaws discovered that threaten to compromise your data and put your enterprise at risk. Sharing your sensitive files requires lots of security, but that doesn’t mean it should be hard. Enterprise file sync and share (EFSS) tools offer a way to share files with other users, and should protect you from those ubiquitous security threats on the internet. There are plenty of options for you to investigate as you transition your organization to an EFSS tool, these are the things that you should look for:

Encryption & Security There is no compromise on security. Time and time again we find reports of data breeches and hacks. It is imperative that a company do their due diligence to encrypt data and prevent data loss whenever possible.
Reporting and Auditing Proper reporting and auditing services will give administrators total visibility into the file sharing service. Recording user uploads, downloads, invites, and edits means that you can be sure that all file sharing is done within the bounds of your organization’s file sharing directives.
Usability Sharing your files should be secure, but that doesn’t mean it should be hard. EFSS tools are there to make your workflow easier, not harder. When finding an EFSS tool to add to your organization, a trial period is the best way to go. Let your users try the product and give you feedback on how well it works for them.

It is important to make sure that you choose the right tool for your organization. If you these features as starting points for your search and you will have a great start for getting your EFSS system up and running!

Blog Post Written By: Matt Seto, Product Manager; Secrata

By admin / January 11, 2017

If You Can’t Beat ‘em…Secure ‘em!

The explosive growth of cloud file sync and share services is no mystery. Companies like DropBox, Egnyte and Box have tapped a rich vein of user demand and delivered a solution that does not impose new behaviors or workflows. This has resulted in explosive growth for cloud providers but has created a security nightmare for enterprise IT. This trend is complicated by the fact that the IT landscape has become far more complex with the rapid adoption of mobile devices like smartphones and tablets driven prim

arily by the consumer market, but forced upon the enterprise by users who demand to use their cherished mobile devices on corporate networks. The convenience and productivity gains realized through the use of mobile computing are clear. So this means that enterprise IT security must find ways to deliver the same service and user experience without compromising the security or audit capabilities of their file and data assets. Rather than ban cloud file sync and share solutions from corporate devices, IT is attempting to take control of the data security. If the enterprise could locate, identify, and secure the data & file assets where they reside—whether inside the enterprise or in a private or public cloud—without imposing a new workflow on the end-user, then everybody wins. If you can make every file movement between clouds, between devices, and between users private and secure, then the user is empowered and risk is mitigated. Secrata can make this a reality for your enterprise today. Topia Technology has ensured unmatched security for Secrata, its data security platform built specifically for the enterprise. Secrata shreds the data first, and then encrypts each shred with unique encryption keys – ensuring your data is impervious to ANY SSL/TLS exploit. It is the most secure way to share files on the wide area internet. Now the enterprise can join the adoption of file sync and share with the confidence that if it’s Secrata, it is secure. Written By: Janine Terrano, CEO Topia Technology

11 Jan