Graphite is a growth agency and SaaS company—focused on SEO and content strategy—that helps companies acquire customers through organic marketing.
Graphite President and Co-founder Marcos Ciarrocchi takes pride in keeping his clients’ data secure.
The agency was expanding rapidly, working with an array of other agencies, customers, and contractors, and using Google Drive to share company files.
As the company grew, so did the volume of information shared among employees, customers, and agencies.
“We have 498,000 files in Google Drive, it’s a daunting task to keep track of everything that’s been created and shared by our team.” Ciarrocchi said.
The Graphite team wanted to keep these shared files as secure as possible, but they ran into some issues. During projects, various collaborators would be added to the company’s documents and Google shared drives. Soon, multiple accounts—both inside and outside the company—would have access to Graphite’s files. When these projects ended, loose ends remained, Ciarrocchi explained.
“Thousands of files are created for a project. Last time I checked, we had hundreds of thousands of files created in our Drive every year.” he said.
According to Ciarrocchi, managing access to thousands of shared documents per project was a challenge.
“It’s a huge surface that we want to keep an eye on and have some automation around who has access to these files.” Ciarrocchi said.
When a contract or team changed, it was difficult to gain insight into file access; there was little visibility into who still had access to which documents and who didn’t.
“Cloud Document Security is a huge issue once you realize you have zero visibility into it.” Ciarrocchi said.
Ciarrocchi needed to find the right balance between collaboration and security, so his team reached out to Nira. The first time the team logged into Nira, they quickly discovered that thousands of files in the company’s Drive were accessible to anyone on the internet through public links.
Nira allowed the team to monitor and fix them all.
Nira was the first time we had an insight into what was happening with these thousands of public files.Marcos Ciarrocchi,President and Co-founder
Using the Nira platform, Ciarrocchi could now log in and view the exact number of shared files, who owned them, and then restrict their access—in a few clicks of a button.
“We can’t get this level of visibility and control of file permissions without Nira.” Ciarrocchi explained.
The team can very quickly clean up file access and gain peace of mind, relieving any anxiety they may have felt.
I feel relieved: Nira gave us a quick way to create an inventory of our files and make sure the right people have access to them.Marcos Ciarrocchi,President and Co-founder
Protect valuable intellectual property
Nira keeps customer information and company IP secure
When working on projects with multiple teams and agencies, Graphite prioritizes keeping customer information and company intellectual property as secure as possible.
Ciarrocchi believes that protecting all company files is critical, no matter the file’s level of security risk.
“In our company documents, there is intellectual property, processes that we use that are unique to Graphite. We want to make sure we know who has access to them.” Ciarrocchi said.
Customers have various teams collaborating on campaigns, or they may bring in another agency or consultant to help.
“We might have three or four agencies working on one of these big projects.” Ciarrocchi said.
The Graphite team wants to make sure every deliverable is accounted for and that access to the data is managed properly.
“We want to ensure our customers’ deliverables are confidential and are only accessible between the two parties,” Ciarrocchi said. “This can be tricky, the project might have many parties involved, not just us and our customers.”
Using Nira, Graphite can view and protect every file associated with a project, no matter how many accounts it has been shared with.
Nira makes sure our company IP or confidential data from our customers is secure. That’s had the biggest impact.Marcos Ciarrocchi,President and Co-founder
Ensure secure offboarding
Graphite streamlines the offboarding process with Nira
The Graphite team integrated Nira into their offboarding process, ensuring their information has the right level of access and security, Ciarrocchi said.
The company is remote-first, and its main way of collaborating is online.
Having visibility into offboarding while working remotely has been vital, according to Sebastian Alamo, Legal and Business Operations Lead.
The biggest advantage of Nira is that we're able to see what files our contractors or former employees have access to.Sebastian Alamo,Legal and Business Operations Lead
Alamo explained they want to ensure that someone who may not have the best interests of Graphite no longer has access to the company’s files.
“It’s peace of mind to know that when someone leaves, we can quickly remove cloud access and make sure they no longer have access to our company docs.” Alamo said.
Using Nira, the team streamlines their offboarding process, saving time and reducing stress.
Restrict personal email account access
Nira allows Graphite to eliminate risks associated with personal account access
According to Ciarrocchi, personal email account access is a prevalent problem for most companies using Google Workspace.
“Folks on our team or our customer’s teams will sometimes, by mistake, request access with their personal emails to company files.” Ciarrocchi explained.
These personal email accounts could be given access to company information, including shared drives and folders. Or, a company file could accidentally be created with a personal email account and then shared with the rest of the team.
Nira gives you visibility into personal email access very quickly. You can cut off the access and ask people to use a proper account. The issue is fixed instantly.Marcos Ciarrocchi,President and Co-founder
Nira also enables the team to monitor personal accounts that are allowed access. For example, a contractor who uses their personal email account.
You don't have full control over accounts outside of your Google Workspace, but Nira gives you visibility into and access control over those files.Marcos Ciarrocchi,President and Co-founder
These capabilities go back to aiding the offboarding process, Alamo explained.
When a contract worker leaves a project or stops working with the company, Alamo and the team can quickly remove file access from their personal email accounts.
“We want to make sure that only certain people have access to IP or confidential information,” Alamo said. “Removing personal email accounts is an obvious way to reduce this risk.”
High-level oversight of complex security issues
Graphite trusts Nira to ensure the security of customer data, safeguard company intellectual property, and enhance its offboarding procedures.
Rather than hiring multiple security personnel to dive into these issues, Ciarrocchi maintains that Nira keeps the company secure.
Nira allowed us to have a high level of oversight into document sharing without hiring a huge security team.Marcos Ciarrocchi,President and Co-founder
Alamo values that Nira’s solution lets him simplify a complex security issue, quickly and easily.
I recommend Nira for two reasons: the simplicity of the tool—how it makes a complex issue simple—and how it allows people without an information security background to take effective action quickly.Sebastian Alamo,Legal and Business Operations Lead
Using Nira, the Graphite team can assure customers, employees, and agencies that all of their shared company information—no matter how sensitive—is monitored and secure.