Corporate America, you've been hacked

Sony Cyberattack, First a Nuisance, Swiftly Grew Into a Firestorm. More than 100 terabytes of internal files and films had been stolen, internal data centers had been wiped clean, and 75 percent of the servers had been destroyed. The F.B.I. found that the hackers had used digital techniques to steal the credentials and passwords from a systems administrator who had maximum access to Sony’s computer systems. Once in control of the gateways, theft of the information was relatively easy.

As we bear witness to the destructive cyberattacks on Sony Pictures, it becomes clear that nobody is safe, we are entering an entirely new era of “cyber-vandalism”.  Those who do not implement cloud data protection will be the next ripe targets. Those who do not change their approach to cloud data protection will lose. The Sony hack has taught us so much. It’s taught us to send corporate email as if everyone is reading those emails. It’s taught us that people in Hollywood are just as mean as people in any other industry, with equally fragile reputation.   Bottom line: This hack is estimated to cost Sony $100 million after all is said and done, and jeopardizes executive careers.

Trust No One…Encrypt Everything

Cloud-First, Mobile-First era requires businesses to adopt the discipline of Trust No One, Encrypt Everything! The Sony hack could have been mitigated if these stolen files had been uniquely encrypted, with only the authorized users (internal/external) in the shared list (embedded in the document header) able to decrypt the files; and, most importantly, if the decryption could only be carried out from an authorized computer or mobile device.

Assume you’re Always under Attack

Enterprise IT is heavily relying on security features provided by cloud vendors but most of the SaaS vendors do not make security a first priority, and so they fail to provide sufficient data governance, data privacy, data sovereignty, and built-in compliance. CIOs and CISOs have realized that maintaining enterprise-grade security in cloud application usage is a shared responsibility, as traditional infrastructure security technologies that are based on the idea of perimeter defense have become obsolete. The perimeter is dead; mobile devices wounded it and the cloud finished it off. Applications today are mobile, so security must be built to move with them.

Ohanae develops security tools to facilitate secure document collaboration using enterprise social platforms, and file sync and share tools that are based on the core assumption that it is impossible to tell good from bad. Our security models focus on eliminating attack vectors, and move away from the never-ending battle of separating “good” from “bad”.

Secure Document Collaboration for Salesforce Users

Ohanae offers near boundless innovations for these new approaches by securing your files in Salesforce cloud, along with your Salesforce credentials. Unlike anyone else, Ohanae takes this two-prong approach to fully secure your data through zero knowledge encryption resulting in:

• Easy to use secure file sharing via Chatter and Communities, Salesforce Files guest link, Skype, iMessage, email attachment, and USB flash drive.
• Assurance that sensitive files in the Salesforce Files are encrypted and only you have the encryption key.
• Access to unique complex passwords without the need to remember them.
• Full-fledged logging in compliance with government regulations. Ohanae monitors your private and shared files uploaded/synced to the Salesforce cloud.

How it Works?

In cases of document sharing, files are encrypted using unique encryption keys which are associated with specific recipients. This allows other Salesforce users to receive encrypted files from you without their knowing any of your critical security data, while maintaining the same level of data security.

For private files in Salesforce Files, Ohanae transparently encrypts files using a highly secure key that is generated on each use and not stored on the device or in the cloud. This encryption prevents access to documents by unauthorized users who might compromise your cloud storage account.

Finally, the password management function ensures that your Salesforce credentials are unique. These unique, highly secure passwords are dynamically created and then erased locally from your desktop or mobile devices. They are never stored on either the device or in the cloud.

Pricing and Supported Platforms

Now available for download, Ohanae is free for single device use. Multi-device business use (up to 8 devices) costs $2 per user/month. Enterprise use costs $3 per user/month with a centralized management capability from an intuitive web interface. Ohanae supports Android, iOS, Windows Phone, Windows Store App, Windows Desktop and Macintosh, Chrome, Safari, Internet Explorer, and Firefox.

Proactive BYOD

Throughout history, there are many examples of events that led to calamities. In hindsight, it’s often painfully obvious that they could have been predicted and prevented by proactive efforts. Bring-Your-Own-Device, often referred to by security officers as “bring your own disaster”, represents just such a sea change for enterprises. A new article in NetworkWorld discusses several surveys that show that BYOD is continuing unabated, and often, unapproved devices or apps are being actively hidden from hostile enterprise IT departments.

Organizational reaction to BYOD typically falls into one of three categories.

In some organizations, IT has mandated that there is no use of bring-your-own-devices or apps. In a very small number — for instance, military or government intelligence agencies — the organization has the ability to completely control all incoming and outgoing network access, and to enforce physical access to facilities by unauthorized devices, and the mandate works. For the vast majority of mandated companies, controls are company policies, and enforcement is by individual compliance. The Trackvia study finds that non-compliance with company guidelines is a significant problem, with almost 70% of younger workers admitting to doing so.

In other organizations, IT has recognized that mobile devices and apps are required to achieve peak employee performance, but have certified and approved specific devices and tools. TrackVia’s study finds this hasn’t worked either, with from 30 to 50% of specific employee age groups reporting they picked other devices or apps because the ones IT chose did not meet their needs.

CIOs in the last category understand that BYOD and BYOA use within their organization is inevitable, but struggle with the other harsh reality that by-and-large, employees just don’t care about security.

Clearly, employees drive organizations towards the third alternative, and organizational attempts to drive towards the first impact employee productivity and efficiency, and consume valuable IT funding and personnel resources.

Ohanae offers CIOs a better way to embrace the second and third choices. Ohanae’s Cloud Privacy Protection software suite allows enterprises to certify and support some third party applications and devices, or to be completely agnostic to apps and devices, against a secure backdrop. Ohanae software ensures that files are encrypted on devices and in the cloud, alleviating worries about data exposure on devices which are not certified, supported, or under management by an organization. Ohanae’s credential management system ensures that cloud based storage (and other cloud based apps) are accessed using secure, complex passwords that prevent account compromise and related data exposure. Ohanae’s secure file sharing allows users to collaboratively exchange data with industrial strength access mechanisms.

Ohanae Cloud Privacy Protection provides a safe environment for corporate data and credentials, and allows IT the time, freedom and safety to make the right choices for BYOD and BYOA that will keep IT users happy, productive and secure.

For more information, please see our videos: Cloud Compliance for Business and Cloud Compliance Policy.

Unique Passwords for Internet Accounts

With the widely publicized compromise of 1.2 billion user accounts from almost a half a million different websites, one very popular question is what can the average internet user do to protect themselves.

The common recommendations are straightforward:

• Use long, strong, and complex passwords
• Use different passwords for every website
• Change your passwords often, at least every six months
• Avoid storing sensitive information (passwords, social security numbers, or other identity information) online

These are the same, proactive recommendations that have been made for several years in response to password and credential breaches. However, historically users have been lax. For instance, among users directly affected by a large password attack, one survey found more than 1/3 of those users did not change their password at all. In 2013, the passwords “123456”, “12345678”, “password”, “qwerty”, and “abc123” continued to be the five most common passwords, just as they were in 2012 (see 2013's report here), even after many large, significant, and well publicized password thefts.

The challenge for users continues to be that secure practices are difficult to do, impact their productivity, and make useful resources harder to access anytime, anywhere. Users continue to make the tradeoff towards speed, productivity, ease of use, and universality — even as the risks and costs dramatically increase.

Ohanae believes that total cloud privacy protection is the solution to this epidemic. Although traditional password management is part of cloud privacy protection, it is not enough alone. Cloud privacy protection must include security of the password manager, so that it does not become a single point of failure, where all passwords can be compromised through it. Cloud privacy protection must include authentication that goes beyond a simple password, preferably by using multi-factor authentication to safeguard access to website credentials.Cloud privacy protection must safeguard data as well as credentials — enabling storage of sensitive, identity related data without risk of trickle-down account compromises if that data is accessed without authorization.

The Ohanae suite for Cloud Privacy Protection implements a password management function called Ohanae 1-Tap. Ohanae 1-Tap does not store passwords anywhere (on your device, on Ohanae’s servers, or in the cloud). Passwords are generated dynamically only when they are used, and generated by two factor authentication based on device and passphrase.

Ohanae’s Cloud Privacy Protection encrypts files stored in cloud storage providers — at creation on your device, during transmission across the Internet, and once stored in the cloud storage provider. The data is protected by strong, multi-factor authentication to dynamically generate decryption keys only on use — industrial strength technology to keep sensitive information in your files from the prying eyes of cyber criminals.

Finally, Ohanae knows that users have the need to securely share data with other collaborators, and supports secure transmission and use.

With Ohanae, it’s easy to establish unique, strong, lengthy passwords for every website, change them as often as you’d like, and have those passwords available on every device you use — whether desktop, laptop, or mobile. You can feel secure storing sensitive files online, and sharing them with others. And, in the unlikely event of a compromise, you have the confidence that the breach is limited — to just a single website, or a single cloud storage provider.

We can defeat the cybercriminals of the world and make epic password theft a news story of the past, and complete Cloud Privacy Protection is the way to do it! To get started, download Ohanae from http://www.ohanae.com today!