In 2021, Google unveiled its Client-side encryption for Google Workspace. This new level of data protection, now in beta, marks a major milestone for secure collaboration in Google Meet, Docs, Sheets, and Slides, especially for users in highly regulated fields like manufacturing, government, tech, and healthcare.
Virtru is proud to be one of Google’s encryption key management partners to unlock these secure data-sharing capabilities.
At Virtru, we believe that data is most valuable when it can be shared. With Google Workspace Client-side encryption, powered by encryption key management partners like Virtru, users can share information more securely, in real time—an immensely valuable capability for hybrid and remote teams.
Implementing Zero Trust Security with Google Client-Side Encryption
By layering Virtru’s encryption on top of Google Workspace and managing their encryption keys separately from the data, organizations can ensure that their information remains indecipherable to Google, maintaining data sovereignty and full ownership of their data. This method of encryption key management is critical to an effective Zero Trust security strategy, and one that Virtru recommends for heightened security and confidentiality.
“Our mission has always been to put data security in the hands of the data owner, whether an individual, company, or government institution – giving them full control of their own data at all times, everywhere it’s shared. We’re proud to partner with Google to expand data security more broadly across Google Workspace, equipping organizations of all sizes with TDF’s Zero Trust standard.” – John Ackerly, Virtru Co-Founder and CEO
Virtru’s encryption is unique because it travels with the data wherever it’s shared, ensuring your data stored within Google Workspace is confidential and remains private, whether you’re collaborating on a shared document in real time, or if you need to share data via other workflows outside of Google Drive (such as email). Virtru also provides access controls that ensure users maintain full visibility into, and control over, their data, even after it’s been shared with someone else. When data access needs change, users always have the ability to revoke access to the data they’ve shared, even if that data has been saved to a desktop or another shared drive.
Zero Trust Empowers Secure Collaboration
This empowers teams to collaborate confidently, with internal and external partners, knowing that their data always remains under their control. This is also valuable for organizations that need to meet strict compliance requirements, such as ITAR, CJIS, CMMC, and HIPAA.
With Virtru as a layer of protection in Google Workspace, teams and individuals can confidently store and share any sensitive data with advanced, secure data tracking — whether that data is within a native Google file type (like Docs, Sheets, and Slides) or another file stored in Google Drive, such as a PDF, video, or CAD file. This protection also expands to Google Meet. This is all made possible by Virtru’s Trusted Data Format (TDF), an open standard that is widely adopted by over 6,000 companies and millions of users, in addition to government agencies and the intelligence community.
Maximizing the Benefits of Google Workspace with Virtru
Virtru has been a longtime Google partner, providing encryption solutions that integrate directly within Gmail, Google Meet, and Google Drive. Virtru and Google share more than 3,500 customers, which range from small businesses to large enterprises, across industries from healthcare to government and education. Notably, Brown University leverages Virtru and Google Workspace to safeguard communication, intellectual property, and other sensitive data for faculty, students, and staff.
This latest Google announcement is just one of many ways Virtru enables secure collaboration. In addition to providing encryption solutions for data shared in Gmail, Outlook, and an array of enterprise SaaS apps, Virtru also continues to innovate by leveraging the TDF to protect all kinds of information, including data relayed from edge and IoT devices.
To learn more about how Virtru complements data sharing in Google Workspace, download our data sheet, Enhancing Data Protection and Secure Collaboration for Google Drive and Beyond. You can also check out TechCrunch’s recent articles that feature Virtru as a Google encryption key management partner: Google Will Let Enterprises Store Their Google Workspace Encryption Keys and Google Opens Workspace to Everyone.
Ready to start the conversation to learn how we can enable your teams to collaborate more securely? Contact Virtru today.
Enhancing Secure Collaboration in Google Workspace
Google Workspace Client-side encryption supports heightened privacy and compliance requirements for native Google Drive files (Docs, Sheets, and Slides) and non-native files (PDF, Office, and image files) within Google Workspace. But most data sharing workflows also require sharing these files outside of Google Workspace, meaning you need both protection and portability. This is where Virtru comes in.
Get the Data Sheet
