A new three-way partnership between Dropbox, Vera and Okta could secure and encrypt documents across any device. It could even persuade organizations in regulated industries to use Dropbox as an enterprise application.

Through the partnership, Vera will offer military-grade encryption to those moving files in and out of Dropbox. For its part, Okta brings its public cloud identity management solution to the new partnership, while Dropbox has its own content protection which remains in place.

Unhappy With Dropbox?

This could change the playing field for Dropbox, which already claims more than 400 million people and 100,000 organizations as users. It has struggled, however, to implant itself in regulated industries over fears for the security of confidential information.

The Vera integration gives Dropbox and Okta customers end-to-end encryption, streamlined user access and the ability to revoke access to critical business information anywhere the data travels beyond Dropbox. But why now?

“We’re at a very exciting point in cloud adoption where highly regulated industries — including financial firms, healthcare companies, and professional services — are taking a serious look Dropbox and similar cloud platforms,” Vera's CEO and co-founder Ajay Arora told CMSWire.

“What these organizations still struggle with is maintaining control over information once it leaves, and that's exactly why we connected Vera, Okta, and Dropbox.”

While there are other security applications that can protect cloud based documents in collaborative environments, this one enables users to revoke access to files or documents should they fall into the hands of unauthorized users.

Is 3 A Crowd?

This partnership is also unusual in that it pulls together three different vendors with three different sets of tools. If pulling the products of two vendors is difficult, three should be more difficult again. Arora says this hasn't been the case.

“No, not at all. In fact, it will make secure collaboration even stronger, as well as more invisible and usable to the end user,” he said.

“This will make it easier for all of our customers to achieve this goal of simple, secure collaboration - they can choose solutions that meet their organization’s needs without adding unwanted complexity.”

Users, he added, can centrally manage access controls to sensitive information, or they can use Dropbox and Vera to automatically secure critical business information shared in the cloud. Alternatively, they can combine the three to protect apps and information together, unlocking the cloud for regulated use.

Fighting Shadow IT

The partnership between the three companies addresses one of the biggest shadow IT problems in enterprises at the moment, notably the use of Dropbox for collaboration without authorization. This results in the transfer of often sensitive files beyond the firewall onto unmanaged devices.

Data breaches and high-profile attacks are costing corporations millions, if not billions of dollars and reputations are taking a major hit.

The Vera platform extends security to Dropbox customers “through the last mile,” even when content is taken offline. By adding strong encryption, usage policies and access controls to files, Vera claims it ensures only authorized users can access critical business information.