"Virtru’s ease-of-use is the single best benefit of the platform. It works and it’s simple, and in the world of encryption, oftentimes that’s not the case. Anytime you’re trying to get people to adopt new technology, the greater the ease of use, the greater the adoption.”
- David Bowden, Zwift’s Vice President of Information Security, Data Privacy, Compliance, and IT
Zwift is an online training program that allows athletes to interact, train, and compete in a virtual world. We spoke with David Bowden, Zwift’s Vice President of Information Security, Data Privacy, Compliance, and Information Technology, to learn why he decided to implement Virtru and discuss the usability benefits that he couldn’t live without:
Why did you decide to seek out a privacy solution?
“There is a lot of money wrapped up in intellectual property, code, and ideas. The transmission of those things is mission-critical for us to continue innovating and evolving the business. We needed a solution where we could communicate openly and freely—yet securely—and most out-of-the-box solutions weren’t meeting our needs. Our previous solution was too hard to install, too hard to configure, and too hard to use. When we found Virtru, we realized it would be easy for both our internal and external users and painless for the IT team to administer.
“With Virtru, we knew it would just “work.” Our “Aha!” moment came when the executive team saw that it worked on iPads and cell phones. Finding a universal, user-friendly solution was a must, and with Virtru, there is little to no training needed. I haven’t had a single ticket filed against Virtru since we installed it and deployed it to the company.”
How has Virtru been integrated into the organization?
“Virtru is used for internal and external communications, including customer service and vendor communications. Using Virtru for secure email is required for most departments, and is especially emphasized for Zwift’s finance and legal teams. Not a single client or business partner has said that they couldn’t open a message sent with Virtru. The workflow is simple for everyone involved and it has significantly decreased the burden on our IT team.”
What is the impact of Virtru on data subject privacy?
“Zwift takes customer privacy very seriously. Virtru allows us to send encrypted messages and attachments both internally between teams and externally to customers. Not only does this enable us to automatically comply with GDPR and CCPA, but it provides confidence for our IT team knowing that sensitive data is protected. Compared to our previous solution, we have a much higher rate of both adoption and compliance which means the organization is better protected from all angles. That protection extends to our customers’ privacy as well.”