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SendSafely |
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May 4, 2015 Issue |
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The Most Powerful Name In Corporate News and Information |
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Secure File Exchange and Encrypted Email Platform |
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Founder & CTO
SendSafely
Interview conducted by: Lynn Fosse, Senior Editor, CEOCFO Magazine, Published – May 4, 2015
CEOCFO: Mr. Holyfield, what is the concept at SendSafely? Mr. Holyfield: SendSafely is an easy to use secure file exchange and encrypted email platform. What separates us from other similar platforms out there is that we use a zero knowledge security model. What that means is we, as the platform and service provider, have no visibility into the data that you transfer through us.
Unlike other file exchange platforms, all of the data is passed through SendSafely is encrypted before it makes its way into our platform and the encryption keys are never accessible by our systems, so we never have the ability to view the messages or the files that are sent through us. More importantly if someone compromises our systems, they would not be able to view or read any of the information that is stored in our systems. The keys needed to decrypt the data don’t live within our environment.
CEOCFO: How are you able to have a system that can really guarantee that? Mr. Holyfield: I am always very clear that we do not claim to have a perfectly secure or “un-hackable” platform. In fact, the reason we built SendSafely is because we understand that no system will ever be perfectly secure. Our objective was to make a system that is easy for non-technical people to use, while making it as difficult as possible for someone who compromises our platform to gain access to anything valuable.
CEOCFO: How would someone use SendSafely? Mr. Holyfield: SendSafely runs natively in any modern web browser so there is nothing to install, which makes it very simple for non-technical people to use. For power users, we have email client integrations we’ve developed for Outlook and Gmail that make sending an encrypted file or message with the single press of a button. Our objective is to make SendSafely as easy to use as possible, since that is the Achilles heel of most security products.
CEOCFO: I notice on your site that the recipient does not have to register anywhere. That could be a very important feature. Mr. Holyfield: Our users love that. Having been a professional security consultant for over 10 years, I’ve been on the receiving end of many secure email systems. I understand how frustrating it can be to be forced to register an account just to pick up a file from someone. It’s a real turn off. And even worse, whenever I would go back to read another message from the same person (usually months later) I never remembered by password, so I would end up needing to reset my password every time I used the system. To me, it’s a bad user experience.
SendSafely doesn’t require recipients to establish an account on our platform unless they want to. Instead, we verify their identity by sending them a one time random PIN to either their mobile phone or to their inbox the first time they access the platform from a new machine. We do this so that we can be sure that only the intended recipient can access the file. We call this “on the fly” authentication and the feedback we’ve gotten is that recipients like it.
CEOCFO: What types of companies are using your service today? Is there a common thread? Mr. Holyfield: I think the common thread is smart business and individuals; companies that care about security and that understand the risk associated with not protecting confidential information shared through the cloud. Many businesses use platforms like Dropbox to exchange sensitive files, not realizing that those files can be exposed to unauthorized access if someone hacks their account or the systems that store those files.
The majority of our customers use SendSafely to exchange customer or client information. This data belongs to their customers and they have a duty to protect it. It’s one thing to say that you are willing to put your own information at risk by placing into the cloud without encryption. You don’t necessarily have that same freedom when it comes to someone else’s data. In the wake of so many recent high profile hacking attacks and data breaches, it’s clear that the threat of unauthorized data disclosure from hacking is very real. In cases where the information is covered by regulatory or compliance requirements, like PCI and HIPPA, there may also be stiff financial penalties if certain data gets exposed. The reality is that the benefits far outweigh the costs when to comes to using a platform like ours, so it’s pretty much a no brainer for most business.
CEOCFO: Are people looking for solutions or do they still not realize that there are better ways of doing it? Mr. Holyfield: These days everyone is talking more and more about security. It’s finally become a boardroom topic, whereas before it used to be something that only the technical folks would talk about. The reality is that most people want to do the right thing; they just don’t want to significantly change the way they are used to doing things. That’s why making sure our platform is easy to use for non-technical users is so important. We’ve found that most people who run across a solution that they gives them better security and doesn’t require them to change their existing workflow will embrace it.
CEOCFO: How are you reaching out? What is your marketing strategy? Mr. Holyfield: Our technology was initially born out of the research labs from a security consulting firm called Gotham Digital Science, or GDS for short. Our customer base initially grew out of the GDS client base, since it was being used with those firms during consulting engagements. Now that we’ve gotten some good traction with our early adopter enterprise customers, we are starting to reach out to a broader audience through more traditional marketing efforts.
One nice thing about our platform is that it has an inherent organic growth component. Most subscribers use SendSafely to communicate with external business partners. A good number of our enterprise clients actually found out about our platform through using it to receive items, and since they liked how it worked they eventually decided to sign up.
CEOCFO: Would you tell us about the cost factor? Mr. Holyfield: SendSafely is very cost effective. The price per user normally comes in under $10/month per user at the enterprise level, but varies depending on the amount of data you need to transfer. I can say that our pricing is pretty aggressive and always comparable or cheaper than similar platforms like Dropbox or Box, who offer similar features but do not offer the zero knowledge security model.
CEOCFO: Why not send everything with SendSafely? Mr. Holyfield: I do! But the reality is that not everything needs to be encrypted. We aren’t trying to replace email, so for basic non-sensitive communication nothing beats the ubiquitous nature or sending a plain-old email message.
CEOCFO: What has changed about your offering over time? What have you learned that makes it better and stronger today? Mr. Holyfield: We listen to our users and let them help drive the new features that we develop. A good example of that is our personal URL feature. We had a user come to us one day and “Why not provide every user with a unique URL that can be used by anybody to send them files?” At first it sounded like a potential security risk, but we figured that as long as we can accurately identify the sender it could be a really useful feature.
Today, every SendSafely user has a personal URL that lets anyone send them items. In many cases, the user has their personal URL in their email signature along with their contact information. It’s one of our most popular features.
CEOCFO: How is business? Mr. Holyfield: Business is great and our user base is growing daily, but that doesn’t mean we are sitting idle. We are constantly looking for ways to evolve our platform beyond just file transfers and secure email. Later this year we are releasing a module that allows teams to collaborate with others in a secure workspace. We think it will be a real game changer.
CEOCFO: Why utilize SendSafely? Mr. Holyfield: The reason to choose SendSafely is simple. We offer the best combination of ease of use and security for communicating with others. There are other platforms that offer similar features, but none of them provide the peace of mind you get knowing that your information is secure from prying eyes. Most secure platforms come with a huge impact to the user experience, and that’s something we try hard to avoid and consider a key differentiator.
As a security consultant for over 10 years, I saw first hand how hard building a secure platform is when you don’t think about security from day one. The biggest mistake most companies make is building security in after the fact. We started from the ground up with security in mind. Most competing platforms can’t say that. |
"The reason we built SendSafely is because we understand that no system will ever be perfectly secure. Our objective was to make a system that is easy for non-technical people to use, while making it as difficult as possible for someone who compromises our platform to gain access to anything valuable."- Brian Holyfield
SendSafely
Brian Holyfield +1 646-568-SAFE (7233)
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Brian
Holyfield