ProducePay uses Nira to implement effective security policies and protect company data

ProducePay began with the goal of helping growers gain more access to capital. That vision has grown into a company with a portfolio of services that allows growers and buyers to connect and trade in a more transparent way. The organization is steadily gaining traction: it started in the US and Mexico and is rapidly expanding to Peru, Colombia, and Europe. 

As a startup with clients around the world, ProducePay wanted to prioritize continuing to strengthen its information security efforts to further protect its company and customer data. When Information Security Manager Anushka Sharma joined, she aimed to strengthen the organization’s IT Security posture and determine what potential risks should be prioritized. 

One major problem she faced: ProducePay couldn’t get full visibility into security risks in its Google Drive—its primary collaboration platform. She was able to get some insight into risks, but it wasn’t enough to take comprehensive actions based on a foundation of complete visibility. Sharma wanted a tool that would both save the team time and let them gain more control over their data. 

“It was imperative for us to put additional controls in place to protect our documents, starting with who we were sharing them with — that visibility was essential,” Sharma explained.

That’s where Nira came into the picture. Sharma was investigating potential solutions and found Nira. The product could solve her problem immediately: it gave both complete visibility and the capability to quickly reduce risks by taking action right away. Sharma looked at other vendors, but there was no comparison in quality or ease of use. 

Nira’s UI was so easy to navigate and understand. I felt like I wanted to spend my time working in it.

Anushka Sharma,

Information Security Manager

Sharma immediately felt comfortable using Nira’s platform; she could very quickly get a complete overview of documents across the organization, drill in as needed, and remediate with ease. 

Nira gave us everything we needed. Not only the visibility of all our documents but the ability to mitigate security gaps. As an admin, I can take action on documents and fix them immediately.

Anushka Sharma,

Information Security Manager

Shielding files from public exposure

Nira allows ProducePay to find and fix company documents with Public links 

First and foremost, Sharma wanted to identify ProducePay documents that could be accessed by the public through open links. Using Nira’s dashboard, she was able to get full visibility into files with Public links and then immediately restrict their access. 

“We were able to select files with Public links in bulk,” Sharma explained. “With just one click, we could change those documents to restricted — it took a matter of minutes.”

Next, Sharma focused on documents that hadn’t been modified in two years, aiding the company with data retention and compliance measures. Sharma was able to easily restrict the files’ sharing permissions. Nira also helped Sharma collaborate with multiple teams to make sure any other documents that should be restricted were secure. 

Not only did these measures help the company protect its files from public exposure, but they also solidified company security policies. For example, ProducePay has a policy that says there should be no documents with Public links without a business reason, with a few exceptions for the marketing team. Nira allowed ProducePay to swiftly secure company data, without taking up much administrative time or resources.

With Nira, we were able to resolve security gaps immediately.

Anushka Sharma,

Information Security Manager

Controlling contractor access to company data

Nira lets ProducePay manage external access and establish policies for contract workers

Because ProducePay works with a variety of external parties, the company needed a better tool to manage how contractors and contingent workers access company assets. Through Nira, the company could identify contractors who own documents that ProducePay should own instead. 

“We realized that some of the documents owned by the vendors who we collaborate with should ideally be owned by us as they were working on a contract,” Sharma explained. 

Nira helped Sharma gain visibility into which contractors had access to what documents, allowing her to immediately reach out to the vendors to transfer ownership of those documents to ProducePay. Sharma was able to quickly communicate the issue to her team and take ownership of the files. 

This method is now part of ProducePay’s policies. When hiring contractors, company policy states that anything that they work on should be owned by ProducePay. The company even created a shared drive for contractors where ProducePay retains ownership of the files that they work on together. 

“If it weren’t for me using Nira, we wouldn’t have known about this issue. By the end of our contract with external parties, those documents could have been deleted,” Sharma said. “Nira saved us a lot of headaches.”

Keeping personal account access in check

Nira restricts personal email accounts from gaining access to company files

Another crucial use case for ProducePay was utilizing Nira to solve the problem of personal account access. Most companies have no ability to do a comprehensive analysis of personal email accounts that have access to their company documents. 

As a result, personal email account access may persist for years, increasing the risk of information theft and security attacks. Part of ProducePay’s company policy is to never use personal email accounts for corporate work. 

We were able to instantly monitor and comply with our personal account access policy through Nira.

Anushka Sharma,

Information Security Manager

The company included Nira as part of their offboarding process, where the team does a quick audit to see if there are any employee personal accounts added to company documents, and then swiftly removes their access. 

Using Nira’s tool, ProducePay could take bulk actions on all at-risk files at once, in just a few moments. The organization was able to instantly reduce risk and stay compliant with company policies and best security practices. 

Empowering employees to eliminate unauthorized access

Nira’s employee security portal enables end users to reduce IT burden

One of Nira’s standout features is its Employee Security Portal. With little to no training, ProducePay employees could utilize the security tool and gain control of their files. According to Sharma, employees were surprised at how fast Nira’s tool was and how easy it was to understand. 

Nira’s quick, intuitive UI allowed employees to take ownership of access to their documents, by changing link types and removing unauthorized access as needed. Some ProducePay employees even use the tool to periodically check on their sensitive documents, Sharma said. For example, the Finance team can keep an eye on confidential files, or documents that they collaborate on with consultants. 

By keeping track of the documents they are sharing with outside collaborators, employees are able to relieve the burden on the IT/ Security team, without taking up much administrative time, if any at all.