Silo for Safe Access gives the agency’s IT full control of their web use
An independent U.S. federal regulatory agency has all its employees located within the Washington D.C. headquarters. From the security perspective, this made it easier to implement a tightly controlled IT landscape based on the “least privilege” model, limiting access only to approved U.S.-based sites.
As the agency’s personnel doesn’t normally interact with entities outside the U.S., the security team universally banned all access to foreign-origin sites to help prevent malware, phishing and targeted attacks from overseas malicious actors. If employees needed access to restricted sites or cloud storage, they were instructed to submit requests with the agency’s IT team, which reviewed each case individually to decide whether to grant access.
Employees were not permitted to access personal sites or email accounts while onsite.
Silo helps makes employees more productive without compromising security
The agency initially rolled out Silo for Safe Access using a native client and are now combining it with the web client, which has proven very helpful for users on Mac and Citrix platforms. Users no longer have to submit IT requests when they need to access blocked sites – they use Silo to browse the web and even occasionally check personal email and social media accounts – without risk.
IT still has full control of their data and environment and can use clearly defined policies to govern web use. Users are permitted to download files from the web to Authentic8 secure storage because Silo always scans them for malware, but they are restricted from uploading files due to data exfiltration concerns.
The agency’s IT group maintains a library of helpful articles to make sure that users are comfortable with using Silo. Instead of responding to individual requests to unblock sites, they now instruct users on how to access them with Silo.
Based on a recommendation from a compliance audit, the agency has recently decided to move to the Authentic8’s FedRAMP (Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program) infrastructure. FedRAMP is the only third-party certification program approved by the U.S. government to vet the integrity of private cloud services, and Authentic8 is currently the only cloud-based web isolation platform to receive FedRAMP approval.
