Box Kicks Off Cloud Storage Enterprise Security Program

Bringing security to the forefront of its value proposition, cloud storage vendor Box has initiated Box Trust, its own security coalition of brand-name providers collaborating to assure the vendor’s business customers that their data is safe and secure.

Box Trust stems from the vendor’s large accounts, some of which have standardized on the Box platform across their lines of business and regard security as a top priority, said Box co-founder and chief executive Aaron Levie in a blog post.

“The need for Box Trust became clear as we began working with larger, security conscious enterprises, many of which were standardizing on Box across their business,” Levie said.

“Organizations like GE, Toyota, Eli Lilly, Stanford Medical, DreamWorks and Procter & Gamble have been early movers in enabling content collaboration in the cloud and on mobile devices, but doing so required a thorough evaluation of the security framework supporting this transition,” he said “Businesses can’t simply move tens of thousands of employees and hundreds of terabytes of data to the cloud and then think about all the security implications later.”

In what Levie called the “first phase of Box Trust,” the company has enlisted 19 security and compliance partners to “provide the most trusted services to our customers, helping them protect and manage their content in the cloud.”

At this early stage, Box Trust providers includes AirWatch by VMware (VMW), CipherCloud, Code Green Networks, Dell, Guidance Software, Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), MaaS360 by IBM (IBM), MobileIron, Netskope, OneLogin, Okta, OpenDNS, Palo Alto Networks (PANW), Ping Identity, Recommind, Skyhigh Networks, Splunk, Sumo Logic and Symantec (SYMC).

Box Trust patrons so far include Chevron, GE, Proctor & Gamble, Toyota and Schneider Electric, among others.

Levie said modern movement of information between people, devices and applications “inflicts major challenges when it comes to security and management of enterprise data.” No client/server security model or technology has been able to stand up to today’s cloud requirement, he said.

That’s necessitated a rethinking of security services such as identity management, access management, data loss prevention, intrusion detection, security information and event management, Levie said, adding that Box’s customers “often look to us to tell them how what services will help them best secure and protect their data.”

With Box Trust, the cloud storage provider may have some answers.