- Customer Profile: Relocation solutions; 5,000+ employees in more than 40 countries; global network of agents and suppliers
- Goals: Protect customer & employee information in transit and storage
- Solution: PGP® Encryption Platform: PGP® Whole Disk Encryption secures laptops; PGP® Command Line protects file transfers; PGP® Desktop Email & PGP Universal™ Gateway Email secure communications; PGP Universal™ Server provides central management
- Deployment: Successful introduction across the enterprise; by PGP® reseller
- Benefits: Data and communications security; regulatory compliance; client satisfaction; simple deployment to entire supply chain; extensible architecture
SIRVA chose the PGP Encryption Platform to protect customer and employee data on laptops, file servers, and in emails.
SIRVA, Inc. is a leader in providing relocation and moving solutions to consumers, corporations, and governments, conducting 300,000 relocations every year. The company operates in more than 40 countries with approximately 5,000 employees and has an extensive network of agents and other service providers in more than 175 countries.
As a global relocation company, SIRVA handles an enormous amount of sensitive information about its consumer, corporate, and government customers. While providing end-to-end relocation services including home purchase and sale assistance, household goods moving, and mortgage services, SIRVA collects detailed customer data and recognizes the need to protect this valuable information.
Safeguard communications. SIRVA’s ability to provide world-class relocation and moving services relies heavily on a strategic network of agents and suppliers. Ensuring secure communications with these partners as well as with customers and employees is essential to serving the company’s global customer base.
Ensure ease of use. Although a transparent security process can be key to enhancing user productivity, it is even more critical when those users are also customers. SIRVA’s reputation for making relocations easy depended on providing a solution that did not require changes to user behavior.
Secure mobile workforce. SIRVA’s mobile workforce has more than 500 members, each equipped with a laptop. Although ideal for travel, these portable devices are also more susceptible to loss or theft. The company needed to protect customers’ confidential information in transit without adding steps or changing existing processes, enabling “business as usual.”
Protect corporate reputation. SIRVA also wanted to avoid the costly, brand-damaging data breaches that continue to occur at alarming rates across all industries. Increasing data security would help ensure its excellent reputation remained intact.
Chuck Shmayel, vice president of Infrastructure and Security for SIRVA, and CIO Eric Dirst teamed up to find an information security solution. After extensive research, they selected the PGP Encryption Platform, which was deployed by a PGP reseller.
Shmayel felt the platform approach provided unique benefits: “PGP Corporation was the only vendor offering a centralized management server that handled multiple applications, which was very important to us, and the only one that offered all the solutions we needed.”
One platform, multiple applications. Taking a platform approach to encryption allowed SIRVA to select specific encryption applications to meet current data security needs. The company chose PGP Universal Gateway Email, PGP Desktop Email, PGP Whole Disk Encryption, and PGP Command Line—all of which are managed by PGP Universal Server. More important, the PGP Encryption Platform provides an extensible architecture, enabling SIRVA to add new applications as business needs evolve and emerge.
Proven software. SIRVA wanted a solution that had been tested in the marketplace. “From day one, PGP Corporation has been the leader in data and email encryption,” says Shmayel. “Deploying a solution across the enterprise can have a big impact, so you don’t want to risk implementing something no one has tried before. You want a product that is successfully used by a majority of the marketplace.”
Laptop security. “Protecting sensitive data on our laptops was a high priority,” explains Shmayel. “Plus, the solution had to be transparent to our mobile workforce so their productivity would not decline.” SIVRA’s selection of PGP Whole Disk Encryption protects the company’s intellectual property and customer data by transparently locking down sensitive data without changing user behavior or workflow.
End-to-end email encryption. SIRVA installed PGP Desktop Email for all employees who required secure internal communications and deployed PGP Universal Gateway Email for those who typically exchange sensitive information with customers and partners. “Because we’re a global company, email is our most common form of communication, so we need to create a secure communications structure,” says Shmayel.
Protected data transfers. SIRVA often transfers sensitive information via secure FTP sites and is in the process of upgrading to PGP Command Line to secure these electronic data exchanges. As Shmayel explains, “We currently use a combination of tools to protect secure FTP data transfers, but found we could achieve the same goal using PGP Command Line. It’s much easier to manage a single tool, and this approach will be much more efficient.”
Support of open standards. To ensure the company could interoperate with customers that already had encryption systems, SIRVA needed a solution that supported the OpenPGP and S/MIME industry standards. “A standards-based solution is very important,” says Shmayel. “Choosing something that wasn’t compatible with our customers’ various systems would defeat the purpose.”
SIRVA’s deployment of the PGP Encryption Platform and PGP applications has been very successful. Thousands of employees now use encrypted email communications with customers and partners, and more than 1,000 vendors also use PGP® solutions. According to Shmayel, customer acceptance of the new PGP email solutions has been high because they are easy to use. In addition, SIRVA has deployed PGP Whole Disk Encryption on about 300 laptops and has begun implementing PGP Command Line.
User acceptance. Prior to deployment, Shmayel and his team conducted seminars to educate employees about the upcoming changes. “Employees were actually asking for encryption,” says Shmayel. “They’ve seen the news about data breaches at other companies. SIRVA wants to ensure our clients and associates that we’re implementing solutions that minimize the opportunity for similar data breaches.”
Assured productivity. Although employees initially had questions about how the new software installed on workstations might impact their work, they have discovered it is completely transparent. “They don’t even know it’s running,” Shmayel adds.
Integrated solutions. SIRVA is vigilant about continuing to improve and expand its security program. The company currently uses a content-filtering solution that records all messages passing through the network and intercepts unencrypted email containing sensitive information.
Knowledgeable support. As part of its encryption solution, SIRVA purchased PGP Platinum Support, which provided access to two PGP Support engineers. According to Shmayel, “The PGP engineers are excellent. They understand our system, and this knowledge helps them quickly resolve any issues that may arise.”
Ongoing improvements. Shmayel is pleased with PGP Corporation’s product advances. “Encryption applications are rapidly being adopted by leading companies in all industries,” he says. “When we selected an encryption solution, PGP Corporation was—and still is—the clear leader. In the last 6 months, we’ve seen the technology advance significantly. We’re planning to expand our security applications within the framework of the PGP Encryption Platform.”
Shmayel feels being able to react quickly to new security needs is critical. “Because of the PGP Encryption Platform, we’re now a more flexible organization,” he says. “The platform offered more functionality out-of-the-box than I’d expected, which enabled us to meet our current security requirements and also lay the foundation to respond to future needs effectively and efficiently.” The next step: to expand the successful implementation to SIRVA’s European and Asia-Pacific bases. |
