California State University, Monterey Bay (CSUMB)

Raising the Bar on Cloud Security by Protecting Data in Google Apps

California State University, Monterey Bay Selected CloudLock to Gain Visibility and Control of Data Stored in Google Docs and Sites

California State University, Monterey Bay provides an exceptional education at an affordable price. It is a small, residential campus with an engaged faculty. Students receive individual attention, plus the many opportunities of a comprehensive university. One of the 23 campuses that make up the California State University system, CSUMB is located one mile from the shores of Monterey Bay, between the Salinas Valley and Monterey Peninsula.

The campus is distinctive in serving the diverse people of California, especially the working class and historically undereducated and low-income populations. The university prides itself on making higher education accessible to traditionally underserved (38%) and low-income (33%) populations. Nearly seventy percent of students receive some form of financial aid, and fifty-one percent of students are among the first generation of their family to go to college.

The Problem

CSUMB was among the first wave of universities to adopt Google Apps, with its staff, faculty, students and alumni using the collaboration suite.

The IT team at CSUMB recognized the need for the same controls for data stored in the cloud as data stored in on-premise file servers, and searched for a solution that will help them with the visibility, security, and ability to comply with regulations.

“Since CSUMB uses Google Apps for Education, we have a delicate balance to maintain; we have students and faculty that want the freedom to collaborate, but we also need to ensure that they comply with all applicable laws and university polices. CloudLock is the only tool that lets us maintain this balance,“ said Henry Simpson, Director for Technology Support Services, California State University, Monterey Bay.

Gaining Visibility and Control

“Overall CloudLock fills a huge gap in Google Apps and I can’t imagine trying to support, audit, and maintain Google Apps without it. The reporting is CIO-friendly, and really helps us understand usage,” said Simpson.

CloudLock’s consolidated dashboard provides immediate visibility into all documents, users, and exposures, highlighting risks for the entire domain and allowing a quick drill-through into exposed data to view and take immediate actions to secure exposures.

CloudLock gives Google Apps domain administrators an effective way to manage documents, sites, collections and users in the domain as well as documents shared from the outside. CloudLock users can change and correct permissions for all documents and collections, including those they are not shared on.

Business Continuity

“CloudLock allows us to maintain business continuity, removing the worry about data loss. I have the tools I need at my fingertips, letting me see who owns what and I can easily make sure we do not lose or jeopardize our critical data,” said Simpson.

CloudLock enables domain administrators to perform Bulk Operations to enforce access controls by adding or removing collaborators, changing ownership, and changing collaborator access rights on all or some documents in the domain.

Comply with Regulation for Data Stored in the Cloud

“The data that we store in Google Apps is subject to the same regulations as the data we store on on-premise. CloudLock helps us comply with FERPA, security standards and other internal governance procedures,” said Simpson.

CloudLock helps organizations to comply with regulations and governance procedures with its:

• Security Policy Engine – CloudLock’s Security Policy Engine provides organizations the framework necessary to define policies and make sure that collaboration practices are monitored and remain compliant with governance policies and procedures.
• Automated Monitoring and Alerting – CloudLock provides ongoing monitoring of the entire domain with email alerts on newly exposed documents and changes in permissions for existing documents.
• Complete Audit Trail – CloudLock provides a complete audit trail of all activities and changes performed. The audit is tamper-proof and records all changes and searches done via the application as well as all end user permission changes.