Energage helps companies collect, understand, and amplify the voices of their employees. The unified SaaS platform features four integrated solutions that allow companies to recruit and retain the right talent.
As the Director of Information Security and Privacy at Energage, Young Kwon faced a significant challenge: developing secure practices surrounding document sharing. At Energage, Kwon had established a robust security program but needed a clearer understanding of what was going on in the company’s cloud collaboration environment.
“The handling of document sharing, it’s a beast,” Kwon said. “That project is so big, and we wanted to get a better understanding of what was happening.”
The main challenge Kwon and the Energage team faced was gaining visibility. The goal was to view and assess all data in the company’s Google Drive and determine which sensitive documents needed the most protection. Kwon wanted a more comprehensive overview of potential access risks.
This led him to investigate Nira.
For Kwon, gaining access to Nira was like turning on a bright light in a dim room. He didn’t realize the visibility he was missing until he utilized Nira’s tools. At last, the team gained a full understanding of their security risks in Google Drive. Kwon explained that he vetted other vendors, but they did not come close to offering the same capabilities as Nira.
Comprehensive visibility and access transparency
Nira allows Energage to view and understand risks around document sharing
First and foremost, Kwon uses Nira to gain an understanding of internal and external document sharing to evaluate and reduce risks.
Nira gives Kwon and the team a complete overview of the access risks they have, including files shared with unauthorized external parties and personal email accounts. Nira lets them quickly analyze access to specific files—in just a few clicks.
I definitely recommend Nira for full visibility into documents and transparency of access. Nira’s helped us come up with a plan to provide more security around document sharing.Young Kwon,Director of Information Security and Privacy
Above all, Kwon promotes transparency within security. Nira allows him to view and share any access issues with stakeholders and then take actions to be even more secure.
“I want to demonstrate the risks, so our stakeholders can understand where we sit with document sharing and security,” Kwon said. “Once you have that visibility, you can take those steps to be more secure and proactive.”
Safe, secure employee offboarding
Energage uses Nira to restrict file permissions, remove personal account access, and clean up stale documents
One of Energage’s use cases for Nira is to bolster employee offboarding. During the offboarding process, Nira allows Kwon to restrict access to files, close public links, and remove personal account access with ease.
“Cleaning up access during offboarding is key. We have to make sure a departing employee doesn’t share documents to a personal email account, which is really common,” Kwon said.
It was vital for Kwon and the team to remove personal account access when offboarding employees. The issue with employees sharing files with personal email accounts is this access can persist long after an employee has left. These documents are more vulnerable to cyber attacks as personal accounts don’t have as strong protections as corporate accounts.
Incorporating Nira during offboarding gives Kwon and the team a better understanding of access to company files and how Energage restricts those documents.
It's having confidence that employees are not sharing their documents to their personal emails or any other email addresses I'm not aware of. Nira helps me sleep better at night.Young Kwon,Director of Information Security and Privacy
Additionally, if there are stale, outdated documents that belong to former or departing employees, Kwon can swiftly restrict their access permissions. Access to stale documents can create several issues. As documents age, the probability of unauthorized access increases as people have more time to share the documents, including with external domains and personal accounts. Access risks can last for years after an employee has left, with no simple solution to remediate.
To tackle this problem, Kwon uses Nira to quickly find stale documents with different access levels and then restrict their access in a few clicks.
Nira allows Energage to bolster employee offboarding, keeping the process secure and streamlined. Instead of being reactive to risks, Nira helps Energage stay preventative.
Effortless contractor offboarding
Nira helps Energage stay secure after contracts expire
Kwon explained that at any given time Energage collaborates with dozens of contract workers through a contracting company. When those contracts end, Kwon uses Nira to make sure the offboarding process is smooth and secure.
Many companies don’t have visibility into the documents contract workers have access to, let alone the ability to easily remediate issues when they leave. This leads to all sorts of problems, like contractors having access to information they shouldn’t see. Contractors may share documents to their external company emails, something that Energage does not permit.
Nira allowed Energage to gain complete visibility and control over documents with contractor access. In a few minutes, Kwon can see exactly which documents contract workers can access and quickly remove unnecessary permissions. He can investigate abnormal behavior, finding potential problems and fixing them before they become incidents.
Having visibility into contractor access is vital for Kwon and the team. It has helped strengthen their robust offboarding process and make sure they continue to stay secure and compliant.
“It’s important to maintain security around those documents, especially if there’s a potential hostile termination, which doesn’t happen often but can happen,” Kwon explained.
Nira provides peace of mind during the contractor offboarding process.Young Kwon,Director of Information Security and Privacy
Show, don’t tell that company data is secure
Through Nira, the Energage team can gain a clear understanding of their risks and keep offboarding processes safe and streamlined. This has enabled the team to view and remediate issues with departing employees and contract workers, a vital aspect of document security.
Above all, Kwon values transparency in information security. Nira helps Kwon with this goal by giving him and the team full visibility into document sharing. With Nira, Kwon can clearly exhibit that Energage’s company data is safe and protected.
It’s not enough to tell our stakeholders we are secure. I want to show them we are secure. Nira helps us do that.Young Kwon,Director of Information Security and Privacy