Use Cases

Gone Home

Workplace Insecurity

Global Sharing

Securely Visible

Forensic Audit

Gone Home

You can maintain control of document security…even when teams are working at home.

The Problem

As a result of the COVID-19 outbreak, employees are required to work from home. Somewhat reluctantly Mark, the Commercial Manager of a large technology firm has dispersed his team, despite the fact that preparation of a major tender is underway.

In order to submit the tender on time, and to incorporate all necessary review processes, documents must be exchanged both across the team and with management.

This scenario represents a new challenge for the organisation. Historically all commercially sensitive documents have been shared within the office, deemed to be a secure environment.

To compound Mark’s challenge it has come to light that, in an attempt to improve efficiency, some team members are collaborating via an external cloud based storage service.

How CoolRock Helped

The tender preparation team was advised to cease their use of external platforms and directed to download the Obsidian Gate desktop application on their phones, tablets and laptop devices.

They perceived this to be an additional layer in their work processes and argued that their productivity would be compromised. With little choice, they installed the app and very quickly adapted to the highly intuitive Obsidian Gate interface.

All content, be it SMS messages, emails or documents, is now encrypted and disseminated through the Obsidian Gate app.

Outcome and Benefits

By mandating the use of Obsidian Gate…

All critical data, including text messages, emails and documents surrounding the project, is encrypted and protected from the threat of vulnerability and attack;
The competitive positioning of the organisation was not jeopardised;
Ease of use of the app encourages usage and thus compliance;
Employee productivity remained high.

Workspace Insecurity

Your data is safe…even when the device may be vulnerable.

The Problem

The COVID-19 outbreak has resulted in a great many people working from home. This includes a team of analysts working for a major investment bank.

John, the team lead, finds himself sharing his workspace with his flatmate, also required to be working from home. John’s flatmate, who has been a friend since university days, works as an analyst for a different global investment bank. Prior to now they have had no difficulty maintaining boundaries between their personal and professional lives.

John worries that with the two of them working in close proximity his laptop and phone may prove to be something of an irresistible temptation to his very ambitious flatmate.

How CoolRock Helped

John made contact with his IT Manager who moved quickly to install the Obsidian Gate application on each of John’s devices. The IT Department created an easily predicted password and a repository of decoy documents.

John has created a more secure set of credentials that enable him to access his working documents.

Outcome and Benefits

By enabling the use of two sets of credentials, Obsidian Gate…

Safeguards the security and privacy of commercially sensitive data, even when the workplace may be vulnerable;
Protects employees from the stress of having corporate data exposed;
Ensures all communications and exchanges are available to any future forensic audit;
Protects the reputation and competitive positioning of the organisation.

Securely Visible

Your critical data can remain secure yet visible, irrespective of how your teams share it.

The Problem

A major financial institution is operating in numerous jurisdictions and is well used to teams coming together from different parts of the world. They work out of their own individual offices using a major videoconferencing platform when they need to meet. Documents surrounding the meetings are shared on their corporate intranet as they realise that the document share facility on the video conferencing platform is largely unsecured.

At the beginning of this year a major restructuring surrounding legacy archives was embarked upon. Much of the data in the legacy archives was extremely sensitive.

With the advent of COVID-19 a decision was made that all executives had to, where possible, work from home. In some countries the law mandated that their employees had no choice but to work from home. The restructuring of the archiving systems and transfer of data to a different platform had already commenced when the decision to work from home was given to the team undertaking the task.

In many countries where team members worked, it was discovered that the intranet worked inefficiently and the sharing of documents became very difficult because of Internet speeds. There was concern that sharing documents by email also presented with security issues. SMS messaging was being used widely for speed and ease-of-use. Although secure, SMS was not captured easily by the company and therefore discussions between senior managers were taking place, around the project, that could not be audited. There was a need to manage electronic communication to ensure project security and to ensure compliance with corporate policy and procedure.

How CoolRock Helped

The choice was made to use Obsidian Gate for all communication surrounding the project. This ensured that emails, attachments, data and SMS messaging surrounding the project is fully encrypted at all times. There is also the capacity to audit the electronic communication and to protect documents and data by a sophisticated system of alerts and permissions.

Outcome and Benefits

As a result of the implementation of Obsidian Gate…

All documents are encrypted, remaining securely within the corporate environment;
Ensures all communications and exchanges are available to any future forensic audit;

Forensic Audit

There’s never been a more efficient way to retrieve encrypted data…

The Problem

In the course of conducting a routine audit at Acme Consulting, a member of Smith & Co’s audit team was approached by an Acme clerical employee who, with a good deal of trepidation, raised concerns over what seemed to be a series of fraudulent transactions.

The local Director of Sales appeared to be raising false invoices, and lodging these with a friendly conspirator within a client organisation. Although there was an outstanding debt on the books, the inflated sales figures ensured the local results were contributing favourably to Acme’s global earnings, the market was happy and the Director continued to receive his bonuses. A preliminary review by Smith & Co led to a recommendation for a forensic audit.

How CoolRock Helped

At the direction of Acme Consulting’s Board of Management, Smith & Co’s Forensic Audit specialists were mobilised to conduct an audit. The IT Director assigned temporary permissions to the audit team, enabling them to access data in Obsidian Gate’s encrypted data stores.

The team very quickly detected discrepancies between consultants’ time sheets and invoices raised. They were further able to show that the Director of Sales had generated fraudulent invoices by overriding internal controls.

As encrypted data is transparently decrypted on access after authentication, the Forensic Audit Team moved hastily to gather evidence. In fact within one day the team had planned their approach, gathered compelling evidence and prepared a report sufficient to take the matter before a court of law.

Outcome and Benefits

Significant reduction in effort, and thus cost, of conduct of audit by Smith & Co;
Significant shortening of evidence gathering timeframe, thus faster conviction of Director of Sales;
More rapid restoration of Acme’s reputation in the market place both as a supplier and employer;