It's 08:00 on a Monday, but Scott Hogrefe and Bob Gilbert can't contain their enthusiasm about IT security in the enterprise.

"Security shouldn't be a roadblock!" says Bob – VP of Product Marketing at Netskope. "We want to help IT security professionals become enablers – not blockers – of digital transformation."

And Scott Hogrefe, VP Marketing, agrees. "Most organisations that we work with are embracing digital transformation. And you can't say the words 'digital transformation' without thinking about collaboration tools such as Workplace by Facebook."

"You can't say the words 'digital transformation' without thinking about collaboration tools such as Workplace."

So the question for IT and security professionals in forward-thinking organisations becomes: how do you put even better controls around platforms such as Workplace so we can deploy to absolutely everyone in the business?

And that's where the Netskope and Workplace integration comes in.

Security squared

"We see Workplace as a very secure environment," says Bob. "But as a shared-responsibility model, there are always scenarios to cover from the enterprise vendor standpoint."

This means additional security layers enabled by the Netskope integration. Flexible controls that allow IT and security professionals to mitigate risks against accidental or malicious internal user activity.

"Netskope has visibility into risky activities such as people moving sensitive data to where it shouldn't be," adds Scott. "If a user takes data from a company quarterly financial statement and moves it to their personal Dropbox," says Scott. "Netskope sees that activity taking place."

"Netskope has visibility into risky activities such as people moving sensitive data to where it shouldn't be"

Protecting your data

At that point, organisations have several layers of security that they can set depending on their policies, their needs or their appetite to risk.

"You can set Netskope to report risky activity and alert the admin so they can then take care of it in the back end," Scott says. "Or you can turn the knob further. So when Netskope identifies certain activities, it can block the activity immediately, alert the admin – and then coach the user."

"When Netskope identifies certain activities, it can block the activity immediately, alert the admin – and then coach the user"

And it's this flexibility that resonates with Netskope and Workplace customers.

"Some enterprises don't want to disrupt the user flows," Scott says. "But they do want to immediately alert the admin. Other organisations prefer to mitigate risk immediately – they never want that activity to happen. Either way, they'll put that control in place using Netskope."

Allow is the new block

So why does this help to remove roadblocks and how does it shift the IT department from a blocker to an enabler of digital transformation?

"In many ways, 'allow is the new block' is the call to action for many IT departments today," says Scott. "We're in a world where many security professionals we talk to are still taking a hard line against shadow IT," he adds.

The historic refrain from the IT team was "If we didn't sanction it, we are going to block it". But things are changing. Organisations need IT teams to support complex initiatives from all areas of the business which often involve different technologies.

The additional controls in Netskope give IT professionals the ability to provide this support at scale along with a way of moving away from a knee-jerk disposition to block.

"The additional controls in Netskope give IT professionals a way of moving away from a knee-jerk disposition to block"

"This helps them find new ways to provide the security that they need," Scott says. "The compliance, the risk reductions, the data protection. The things that they need to help their organisations fully embrace that digital transformation."

Deeper and stickier Workplace deployments

Workplace connects entire organisations. Top to bottom and front to back. But you can only realise this full potential when everyone has access to the platform.

"Just because an organisation with 100,000 employees adopts Workplace – that doesn't mean that 100,000 people are using it yet," says Bob. "By removing these security concerns, organisations are free to more widely deploy Workplace and enjoy the benefits."

"By removing security concerns, organisations are free to more widely deploy Workplace"

Benefits such as connecting email-less workers. Because when Netskope security gives you the green light to connect 1000s of frontline workers using their own devices – you've just taken a huge step toward turning your company into a community.

And we think that's something we can all get really enthusiastic about.

What's in the box?

Granular visibility and control of non-compliant activities in Workplace. See activity and data movement violations contained in files, posts and messages and investigate by drilling down into details about users, activities, data, devices and more.

With huge thanks to Scott Hogrefe and Bob Gilbert at Netskope.