“These accounts give the organisation no visibility into what their employees are sharing, and this should raise a red flag”, she explains.
“We need a real sea-change in people’s opinions on this matter. It’s not covered widely in the press, but when you think about it, it’s the equivalent of allowing employees to get their own business and financial accounts. It’s connected to the idea of people having personal technology freedom, but it’s unacceptable”.
Skokowski admits that the constant stream of data breach stories “is helping business”. It’s terrible”, she adds, “but it is”.
Accellion provide secure file transfer services for organisations of all sizes – from government to SMEs. “[Secure file transfer] is a very interesting area right now. There’s enough market pressure for organisations to do something about it, and it’s going to make a big difference to how people do business”, she says.
Skokowski insists that USBs, CDs and DVDs are hardly optimal the optimal tools for transporting files. “It’s not possible that people still think this is a good idea?”, she questions, rather incredulously. “I hope we’re at the point when people are really going to understand this and ‘get it’”.
Accellion’s technology, which allows organisations to share files securely both internally and externally, allows clients to demonstrate compliance in a “flexible and scalable way”.
FTP sites, says Skokowski, are “not user friendly and people share their log-ins”. The Accellion appliance – which can either be cloud-based or on a server, depending on the client’s preference – increases security, and also takes storage pressure away from email accounts, of which 75% of storage space is typically used by files.
In June, Accellion extended their platform to support the Microsoft business suite, allowing clients to share files via online chat and web conferencing, as well as through email. “This provisions everybody and allows organisations visibility into files, wherever and whenever. We are unique in offering this”, she says proudly.