Every month or so there’s news of another company that’s been hacked. The consequences are serious and can be catastrophic. A recent victim, Equifax, has left millions of people with stolen credit. To add insult to injury, Equifax’s stock took a big hit — dropping over 30% in a 10 day period. Why is it so hard for companies to secure highly sensitive data?
It’s a problem many companies are still trying to figure out. Thankfully, it is possible to solve, albeit quite challenging. Many companies take a layered security approach. There’s also the human factor. Companies need to manage communication between employees and outsiders. Using a third-party channel such as Gmail, Messenger, iMessage, Slack or Teams is a no-no as all your messages will be stored on the third-party’s database indefinitely.
So you want to share an important message but you don’t want this highly sensitive information (i.e. trade secret, password, bank account etc.) to remain in the depths of the internet. What’s the best solution?
Presently, the most secure means is meeting in person. In fact, this is how business is conducted for highly sensitive communications and is still employed by top government intelligence organizations today. Another solution is making phone calls. Most times, neither of these are practical.
The next best thing is a new class of messaging referred to as secure ephemeral communication or read once messaging. This means once the message is viewed it is gone forever — just like Snapchat. So how do companies know that sensitive messages are deleted? Easy, they host the service on their network. Using this technology, companies can feel safer knowing they have an additional layer of protection.
Although it doesn’t solve all security problems, it’s certainly a step in the right direction. If you want to learn more we recommend testing out either Onetimesecret or GoSecret.