Amidst growing fears about the security of cloud storage services recently fueled by the alleged hacking of sexually explicit celebrity photos from Apple's iCloud, Box announces better security for its enterprise cloud platform customers.
At its BoxWorks Conference held on Thursday, the ten-year-old cloud storage company announced a number of improvements to its services, including a new partnership with AT&T to include the carrier's NetBond technology to all Box enterprise accounts.
On Thursday's conference, AT&T senior vice president of advanced solutions at the company's mobility and business group Abhi Ingle said enterprises want to move their work to the cloud because it improves workflow and productivity. However, this usually comes with a number of compromises on the part of the enterprises.
"They always feel like they're trading off against security, control and visibility," remarked Ingle.
NetBond, which is already used by other enterprise service providers such as IBM, Microsoft and Salesforce.com, allows users to access their files on the cloud via their own AT&T virtual private network (VPN) instead of through public Internet access. Box says that by limiting traffic to the enterprise's platform, NetBond can provide security against external attacks such as DDoS attacks while delivering better performance. As per AT&T, NetBond has as much as 50 percent lower latency and is three times more available than public Internet.
Essentially, NetBond will let users go on the cloud as if accessing it from their own private networks. Box also claims that clients can save as much as 60 percent in networking costs with the inclusion of NetBond.
Box is also integrating AT&T Toggle into its service to let users access their files on the cloud wherever they are using their own devices. This bring-your-own-device solution separates a user's mobile phone or tablet into two parts, one for work and another for personal use.
"Together, Box and AT&T will deliver a unified solution that makes it incredibly easy for users to access their content from virtually any device and get work done, while giving businesses the enterprise-grade security, reliability and performance they need," says Whitney Bouck, Box senior vice president of global marketing in a statement.
Bouck also announced that Box is getting ready to integrate third-party security systems from Splunk and HP Arcsight to allow customers to monitor cloud security using these systems.
Box is set to release with AT&T NetBond and Toggle in 2015 as it gets ready for its initial public offering on Wall Street. The company currently faces tough competition from Microsoft and Google as well as Dropbox, which is also rolling out a number of improvements for its enterprise clients.
