Compliance Tool for File Sharing Governance.
Sharing files isn’t a problem. However, keeping your shared files “open” to outsiders leaves your organization vulnerable to data theft, leaks, privacy violations, etc.
Tricent Compliance Tool gives you visibility into who can access your organization’s files. Our SaaS tool provides efficient ways of mitigating potential vulnerabilities. Requiring little to no maintenance, resources, or training, it can be set up in less than a day.
Take control of your organization’s shared files
Ungoverned file sharing poses risks for your regulatory demands, compliance efforts and overall cybersecurity stance. Tricent Compliance Tool helps you to take control. Estimate how many files you share externally. The calculator shows you the implications of unsecure external sharing.
The problem
Most businesses cannot know if critical or personal information is shared outside the organization and how to mitigate it. While Microsoft 365 is an excellent business suite, it cannot give you an overview of how many files and Teams are shared externally and with whom they are shared. This means that your data (shared by current and former employees) is out there — which can seriously challenge your data security and compliance.
The solution
Tricent Compliance Tool helps you audit and clean up externally shared files and Teams from the past, present and future.
- Full control of data shared with external users Businesses can revoke all data shared by former employees in just a few clicks, mitigate ongoing sharings through automated compliance policies, get an overview of employee sharing statistics, etc.
- Mitigate ongoing sharings through automated compliance policies IT admins can easily set a number of automated compliance policies for how often employees need to review their shared files or Teams.
- Involve the employees in the cleanup processes. It’s the users who know best what needs to stay shared regarding their work. That’s why Tricent Compliance Tool involves them in the cleanup process through notifications.
Be in complete control of your organization’s shared file
Asking your users to clean up files, folders, and Teams that should no longer be shared is a monumental task and often not met with excitement. That’s why we offer the Tricent Compliance Tool. You can set up automated policies that work autonomously or include end users. With a few clicks, you are on your way to improving your file-sharing governance within your Microsoft 365 suite.
There is nothing wrong with sharing, as long as you share the right things with the right people for the right amount of time. In our experience, end users know which files fall into which category. With TCT, you can create an automated flow where end users are prompted by email to decide if Teams and files should still be shared. If they do nothing, the Tricent Compliance Tool will remove external permissions automatically.
Get in-depth visibility into your organization’s shared files and users’ sharing practices to better:
- Identify who has access to your files, folders, and Teams
- Audit Teams, files, folders, external users, and domains in a matter of seconds
- Perform bulk operations to revoke external access to your Teams, folders, and files
- Set an expiration date for shared files and folders
- Manually ask file and folder owners to review external permissions
About Tricent Compliance Tool
Document collaboration helps us work closely with others, accelerates creativity, keeps us informed and much more. Yet, a big issue is often overlooked– knowing who can access, edit, or even share your files with others.
The Tricent Compliance Tool (TCT) is a web application that can audit, clean up, and notify users when it’s time to revoke the file access of external collaborators. The Tricent solution helps organizations with data compliance, Microsoft 365 admins, and Security officers with reporting and defining file-sharing periods, and it involves the end-user in their file-sharing activities. With the Tricent Compliance Tool, your users will easily manage their shared files. Users often forget to unshare files after the collaboration is finished—Tricent solves this.
Use cases
- Overview of externally shared data.
- Remediate existing data leaks.
- Cut access for compromised partners.
- Clean up files shared by ex-employees.
- Show governance efforts to stakeholders.
- Reduce risk of data theft and corruption.
- Clean up orphaned files.
- Improve awareness in end-users.
- Embed “security by design”.
- Secure and compliant file sharing.
5 Risks of Sharing Files Externally
When using collaboration suites like Microsoft 365, chances are you’ve shared a file with someone at some point (e.g., documents, PDFs, videos, images).
Sharing files isn’t a problem. However, not managing external access to your files certainly is, and it represents a big security risk to your organization each day externally shared data remains unknown and unmanaged. Let’s be honest; most people in the organization focus on creating business value, not spending much time reviewing their shared files, right?
We get it, but ignoring external access puts your organization at risk. Increasing research, including a recent Ponemon Institute survey, exposes how uncontrolled file sharing can plague organizations, and their IT leaders are starting to sweat. Let’s talk about the top five risks.
Shared files are an “open door” into your organization if they contain employee credentials, personal information, proprietary business data, or anything else sensitive that outsiders can use to bypass your security efforts.
According to Ponemon Institute’s survey, shared files pose security risks due to:
- Third parties accessing data they shouldn’t (84% of IT respondents agree)
- Employees accidentally exposing information (73% of IT respondents agree)
- Broken security management processes (48% of IT respondents agree)
- Hackers (28% of IT respondents agree)
- Malicious employees (19% of IT respondents agree)
The Ponemon Institute survey also found that 52% of an organization’s sensitive data is stored in SharePoint. With so much sensitive data living on solutions meant to be shared to promote and support collaboration, the risk only continues to grow.
According to a Verizon 2022 study, 82% of all leaks and breaches happen because of human error. Ponemon Institute’s survey adds that 63% of IT respondents say employees have accidentally shared files with unauthorized people outside the organization. As a result, 49% of surveyed organizations have experienced at least one file-sharing data breach in the past two years!
In addition, the Ponemon Institute survey highlights how not knowing who is sharing sensitive data or where it resides increases the risk of data breaches. Surprisingly enough:
- 79% of IT respondents feel they don’t have the right tools to protect sensitive data from accidental exposure
- 63% of IT respondents don’t know where sensitive data resides
- 49% of IT respondents believe existing tools aren’t effective when it comes to data protection
These findings demonstrate the need for having the right technologies to detect, protect and respond to unauthorized file-sharings.
According to the University of Texas, 94% of companies suffering from a catastrophic data loss do not survive – 43% never reopen, and 51% close within two years.
File-sharing is convenient, but it poses serious data loss and data governance risks as “editor access” is the default sharing setting in collaboration suites. With such access, others can corrupt, delete, or even leak your files without your organization’s knowledge or consent. In Ponemon Institute’s survey, shared files pose risks since
- Employees don’t clean up sensitive files as required by policies (72% of IT respondents agree)
- Employees accidentally share files with unauthorized individuals (65% of IT respondents agree)
- Employees share files with unauthorized individuals outside the organization (63% of IT respondents agree)
Files shared with public links pose another data loss risk because they can invite search engines to index them, making the content accessible to everyone on the internet. This is one of the easiest ways for outsiders to access your files.
Knowing about your organization’s file-sharing exposure can help take the corrective measures required for a good data governance strategy.
Big tech, tech unicorns, and top startups had 60,106 layoffs in November 2022 (based on data from TrueUp). Couple this stat with Verizon finding that 72% of departing employees admit to taking company data. As they have created and managed the data on the job, they think it belongs to them or simply will give them a leg up when pursuing new opportunities. However, such behavior usually violates the organization’s policy and causes serious risks under regulations like GDPR, ISO 27001, etc. and can result in lawsuits and financial losses.
Yet, perhaps unsurprisingly, Ponemon Institute found that 70% of surveyed organizations struggle to detect data thefts, as respondents don’t feel they have sufficient tools in place.
137 out of 194 countries have some sort of privacy and data protection legislation put in place (GDPR, HIPAA, PIPL, LGPD, etc.). As a result, it could be incredibly expensive if employees accidentally or intentionally expose personal data. Under GDPR alone, violations organizations can be fined €20 million or 4% of the global annual revenue (whichever is highest) for failing to protect the privacy and data of EU citizens.
Fortunately, privacy laws resemble each other with the main objective to ensure citizens’ information is protected, secured, and managed in the best possible way. Oftentimes, organizations simply need to prove they’ve made every reasonable effort possible to protect sensitive and private information. Having tools and processes in place around file sharing is a great way to strengthen compliance.
Sharing files helps employees collaborate with external users on projects needed for creating value and business growth. However, unmanaged permissions pose various security, data governance, and privacy risks that could damage the organization’s financial and reputational situation.
Human error accounts for one of the biggest risks regarding accidental or intentional data exposures. So as more sensitive data gets stored on the cloud, organizations must equip themselves with the right technologies for detecting, protecting, and responding to any data exposure or unauthorized shared files.
Tricent gives you 100% control of your shared files in Microsoft 365. As an official Microsoft partner, our tool meets their highest security standards.
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Ready to transform your business with custom SharePoint solutions? At WIZSP, we specialize in creating tailored SharePoint solutions that drive digital transformation and business success. Schedule your free consultation today or contact us today to discuss your challenges and discover how our expertise can simplify your path to efficiency and growth. Whether you need to enhance collaboration, automate processes, or streamline document management, our team is here to help. Let’s embark on this transformative journey together and unlock your business’s full potential.
