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On-demand cloud services security specialist Armor5 announced that it has extended its Zero Touch Cloud Security service to Google Apps for Business, including Gmail, Google Docs, Google Drive and Google Sheets.
Armor5 support for Google Apps is immediately available as part of the company’s cloud service, and works with any Internet-enabled device using a standard browser, without requiring installs or configuration changes on the device.
The service gives enterprises protection against data leakage, compliance exposures and privacy breaches at the last mile between the cloud and the device, when employees and contractors bypass perimeter security controls and access cloud-based Google Apps for Business from their devices.
With Armor5, employees can open up a secure session on any device or network to access or edit content stored within the aforementioned Google applications, without requiring additional device control software or network configuration changes.
Armor5 virtualizes the user’s experience and places the security function in the cloud, where it is isolated from the device and the network. The enterprise policy controls are then extended from the network perimeter to enforce access to cloud services without requiring additional effort from the organization.
In addition, corporate policies such as time fencing and geo-fencing are enforced dynamically, based on existing business rules, and the platform also gives users a comprehensive view into cloud service usage across multiple public and private cloud services, including individual session duration, most frequently used services and other statistics.
In an effort to protect employee privacy, the service is only on when users choose to access corporate apps and data, relieving enterprises of privacy exposure during personal use.
The company also noted corporations can avoid privacy breaches resulting from remote wipes, which are unnecessary with Armor5 since data is not resident or cached on the device.
By 2018, 25 percent of corporate data traffic will bypass traditional perimeter security defenses, up from 4 percent today, by flowing directly from mobile devices to the cloud, according to a November 2013 report from IT research firm Gartner.
The report projects that as the adoption of cloud computing and mobility accelerates, new revenue opportunities will emerge, together with the need for better service reliability and security.
“The number of companies using Gmail and Google’s cloud-based productivity suite for business is increasing at a rapid pace,” Suresh Balasubramanian, CEO of Armor5, said in a statement. “But when mobile users access or download corporate data from these cloud services, companies open themselves up to a new set of security, compliance and privacy risks. The current security approach is like putting a padlock on the front door, but leaving a side window wide open. Armor5 secures the last mile—the time when users access and/or edit data within third-party cloud services, while using their devices.”