Whoever Wins the White House, This Year’s Big Loser Is Email

Hackers exploited connected "smart" devices for massive cyberattack to disrupt major websites across U.S.  Private security group says Russia was behind John Podesta’s email hack, email has proven to be an embarrassment of ways to conveniently communicate with one another. Let’s analyze the basic mystery buried in the emails: Why were all these people discussing so much over email in the first place? The answer, of course, is that email is as tempting as it is inescapable, for Mrs. Clinton as well as for the rest of us. More than 50 years after its birth, email exerts an uncanny hold on all of our internal affairs.

The sudden exposure of the Clinton campaign email cache is perhaps the ultimate evidence that we have all overcommitted to email — we have put too much in it, expected too much from it, and now, finally, we are seeing the spectacular signs of its impending destruction.

Email is simply not up to the rigors of modern political and business life. It lulls us into a sense of unguarded security that it never delivers. It entices us to spill our darkest secrets, and then makes those secrets available to any halfway decent hacker. There are several alternatives that could take its place, without the same pitfalls, and the Clinton cache shows why we would be wise to adopt one of them.

What about iMessage?

Let’s pour one out for email, which has had quite a run and move on to something else. Picture yourself, the Clinton campaign uses iMessage to convey news, to set out tactics and strategy, to theorize, to push back, to gossip. It is used in place of phone calls and face-to-face meetings; it is used as a daily calendar and a collaborative whiteboard. Having a single place to discuss everything makes teams more efficient.

Millions and millions of people use iMessage every day. But how many people know exactly what’s going on behind the scenes, or what happens to a message once you send it?

To over simplify it: imagine you have a mail box. This box has two keys. One key lets you drop mail into the mail slot, and one key lets you take mail out. The input key and the pickup key are entirely different; one can never be used to replace the other. You can give away a million copies of your input key, and no one could use it to do anything but put mail in. Unless they find a copy of your pickup key or find a weakness in the way your mailbox was designed, your message is safe.

This is the thinking behind iMessage and public-key cryptography. Your “public key” is like the mail slot key. You can share it with the world, and anyone can encrypt messages to send to you. But the public key only works in one direction. Once a message is encrypted, that public key can’t be used to decrypt it, or reverse the encryption. Once encrypted, your private key (the mail pickup key) is the only way to restore the message to its original readable form.

How iMessage works?

When a user first enables iMessage, your device creates two sets of private and public keys: one set for encrypting data, and one set for signing data (verify that the encrypted text has not been modified after it was sent to the server. If these two things ever do not match up, red flags start going off.)

Your public keys are sent to Apple’s servers. Your private keys are stored on your device. Apple never sees your private keys.

When someone starts an iMessage conversation with you, they fetch your public key(s) from Apple’s servers. Before that message leaves the sender’s device, it’s encrypted into something that only your device knows how to decrypt.

Apple quietly released a document in May 2016 that breaks it all down. 

File Compliance Management for iMessage

Now you can select a shared file created by Ohanae (.oha) from Dropbox from within iMessage, and share your work in-line while you are chatting with teammates.

While the Apple iMessage provides enterprise-grade security for content at rest, those protections stop the moment files are shared, emailed, or downloaded from the iMessage.  That’s where Ohanae steps in to protect your files anywhere they travel, giving you full visibility, control, and assisting your compliance with mandatory government regulations.

Ohanae alleviates data-sovereignty concerns by making it easier to encrypt data and control the encryption.  Eventually, everyone will come to their senses and realize that the real solution for data sovereignty is encryption, not building data centers in various countries.

Download a copy of the Ohanae Technical Overview here: Ohanae for Salesforce on AppExchange

U.S. officials investigating hacking into more state election systems

Witnessing the many destructive cyberattacks, it is now clear that nobody is safe. 

U.S. officials are expanding their investigation into the hacking of state election systems as officials believe more states beyond just Arizona and Illinois were affected, a government official has confirmed to CBS News. The U.S. believes that people working for the Russian government are behind the hack of internal emails at the Democratic National Committee, officials confirmed to CBS News.

Enterprise social networks could potentially replace email if implemented correctly

Salesforce Chatter has radically evolved to meet the increasing demands of enterprise collaboration. Chatter has delivers significant benefits for enterprise including increased productivity, engagement, visibility and responsiveness.

Contextual communications

Discussions grouped by Account, Opportunity or any other record give greater depth of understanding.

Sharing in groups

Create centers of excellence that are easily accessible for information and questions.

Sharing files

Unlike email, links to files are updated when a file is modified so you always get the latest version, categorized for easy searching.

Gauge feedback

Use polls to quickly gauge demand or get feedback from your user-base.

Prioritizing topics

 Understand what the pressing issues are with popular discussed topics bubbling to the top.

Influencers

Know who is really influencing the organization by understanding the influencers.

Communities

Involve your customers in conversations, leveraging groups and communities allowing for quick response to critical questions.

Leveraging the feed

Create a task, create a case… Salesforce’s vision is that users will be able to do everything from the feed.

Include Chatter Free users

Even users without a Salesforce license cane benefit from Chatter … for free!

Comply with regulations, maintain confidentiality, share with confidence

Companies need one platform to connect everything. The Salesforce App Cloud is trusted by customers worldwide to keep their most critical data secure. While the Salesforce App Cloud provides enterprise-grade security for content at rest, those protections stop the moment files are shared, emailed, or downloaded from the cloud. That’s where Ohanae steps in to protect your files anywhere they travel, giving you full visibility, control, and assisting your compliance with mandatory government regulations.

Ohanae is fully integrated into the Salesforce App Cloud. Ohanae delivers compliance management for files through secure file sharing in a whole new way. Ohanae protects passwords and data from any type of file, on all popular devices and in the cloud, and securely shares that with anyone. Ohanae is unique because it allows security to travel with shared files. This gives organizations full visibility and control over all communications.

Compliance Management for Files

Extending the Boundary of the World’s Most Trusted Enterprise Cloud

Ohanae empowers companies to share files securely with anyone in a whole new way

Trust is Our #1 Value

Companies need one platform to connect everything.  Ohanae is fully integrated into the Salesforce platform.  The Salesforce platform is trusted by customers worldwide to keep their most critical data secure.  While the Salesforce platform provides enterprise-grade security for content at rest, those protections stop the moment files are shared, emailed, or downloaded from the cloud.  That’s where Ohanae steps in to protect your files anywhere they travel, giving you full visibility, control, and assisting your compliance with mandatory government regulations.  With Ohanae, your business can be more productive and agile, and deliver new levels of trust.

Secure content beyond Salesforce, in mobile devices, email, social, and file shares

Organizations share information.  The reality today is that files are usually stored and shared in cleartext, unencrypted, with no visibility and no control.  The majority of users lack access to, or ignore encryption capabilities, as they create and share their files. With Ohanae, whether your employees are emailing sensitive attachments, passing around financial models on easily-lost USB flash drives, or are using unsanctioned cloud storage tools, you can be confident that all internal and external collaborations are secure.

Secure File Sharing with Anyone in a Whole New Way

Ohanae secures file sharing service for Salesforce Chatter enterprise social network, Salesforce Files and file synchronization & sharing tools (Box, Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive), and email attachments to make the sharing of files and passwords safer, faster, and more private.  Ohanae is unique because it allows security to travel with shared files. This gives organizations full visibility and control over all communications. Once a document is protected, even if it is copied on a USB flash drive, stored on your laptop or on your mobile phone, stored in any cloud provider’s storage of your choice, the document carries the same protection. Ohanae goes further than typical encryption technology by adding policies and yet, Ohanae never has access to the data.

Ohanae for Salesforce Summer ’16 Release

• Secures the flow of protected files resident on all user’s devices, as well as those in the cloud. Ohanae encrypts all important file types, then lets these files be used by everyone in a user’s collaboration group (not just within the user’s organization).  In short, users can now securely share any content with anyone, whether they are inside the group, or not. Outsiders can sign up for a free Ohanae Personal account. This offer lets the users external to the organization consume and produce protected content on a single device of their choice (Personal Premium subscriptions are also available @ $2 per user/month with multiple devices support).

• Logical role-based access control (Company, Role, Group, User) based on Salesforce Identity with additional universal rights management powers such as document tracking, revocation, and limited-time access support.  

• The easy to use mobile sharing app can be downloaded from popular app stores (Apple App Store, Google Play, and Windows Store).  The desktop sharing app (Windows Desktop, and Mac OS) is designed for experienced users who require added functionalities.    An Ohanae for Salesforce managed package can be downloaded today from the Salesforce AppExchange.

• Enterprises can designate specific folders within Salesforce Files, Box, Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive and automatically extend extra protection and data control to documents placed in those folders. Then, as those files are shared, downloaded, or emailed, Ohanae’s protection follows the files wherever they go. For businesses who are highly collaborative externally, this is a great way to ensure protection of content that extends beyond the usual shadow-IT file synchronization and sharing tools.

• Trust is achieved when security is paired with visibility and control. When files are emailed outside of an organization, or downloaded from a shared link, enterprise protections are often lost.  By protecting files with Ohanae, you always retain the ability to see exactly where that file has traveled, who has accessed it, even when   an unauthorized access is attempted.

• Ohanae permits you to instantly revoke access to files and devices:  It’s like having a recall button that actually works.

To experience how you can empower your company to share its files securely with anyone in a whole new way, try out Ohanae for Salesforce, it’s available on the AppExchange today.