Companies should consider more solutions and services that manage collaborative interactions and proactively apply encryption, access control, authentication, digital loss prevention and content management.
For End Users, Most File Sharing Is “Ad Hoc”
The term "Ad Hoc" is Latin and means "for this." The term has evolved to mean something created for the moment in an unplanned way. For end users, most file sharing is ad hoc. To get their jobs done, they need to send data and documents back and forth with customers and partners and to do so they turn to email, and also to enterprise file synch and share (EFSS) systems such as Dropbox. These are the tools they are familiar with and trust, so they turn to them first, without thinking through the security risks.
Meanwhile, IT professionals are forced by regulatory compliance to control and report on exactly who is sharing what files and data with whom. To do so, organizations have come to realize that email and Dropbox are so pervasive and easy to use that secure, managed file transfer alternatives must provide a similar level of ease, or end users will go around IT to get their jobs done.
Companies looking to better manage the implicit and explicit people-based processes should consider managed file transfer solutions that allow companies to enforce their policies around security, privacy and risk mitigation. Companies should consider more comprehensive solutions and services that manage collaborative interactions and proactively apply encryption, access control, authentication, digital loss prevention and content management. These technologies should also provide both proactive and reactive activity management technologies, allowing companies to fully audit and report against all interactions.
Ideally, the solution will allow your employees can to send and receive files using Microsoft Outlook or a simple web browser, making it easy to adopt. Maintain productivity, comply with your security policies, and avoid wasting time training your staff on new systems and processes.
Find out more about how Ipswitch supports ad hoc file transfer within its managed file transfer solution.