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Proofpoint’s solution for secure transmission of large or sensitive files, Proofpoint Secure File Transfer, has been developed to provide a compliant, easy-to-use and easy-to-manage system to send large files. Deploying Proofpoint Secure File Transfer as part of your Proofpoint deployment can help you eliminate the need for FTP servers, improve the performance of your email systems, reduce storage requirements, and create compliant business processes.
The Growing Need to Send Large Files
Today’s business environment is changing more rapidly than ever before. Globalization and increased competition are driving new business models and collaboration needs. For example, outsourcing is creating new demands to synchronize business processes across companies and increase the sharing of information. Another example is the always on, distributed company that has to make faster decisions, which requires more information to be available and shared more broadly. Business users are demanding new tools for instantaneous ad hoc communication and data transfer.
Information and how we share it has evolved as well. Five years ago, most people would use email to share spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations. For other data sharing, they typi-cally relied on custom systems. Today, presentations and spreadsheets are much bigger and are used much more broadly. In addition, application files and sometimes even whole data-bases are regularly shared as part of new business processes. Examples of large files that are routinely sent today include closing documents for complex financial transactions, design documents for engineering firms, research databases for pharmaceutical companies, and video files for advertising and media firms. Many of these files are so big that email cannot reasonably be used to deliver them.
Finally, many business processes have changed so rapidly that the supporting IT systems are out of sync with the businesses they support. While people used to rely on corporate systems to integrate a company, we are now seeing much more data being shared outside the formal IT systems, using alternative or non-standard solutions. While some organizations have resorted to more cumbersome and costly solutions, such as CD burning and overnight mail, most companies need to move at electronic speed and are using a very unlikely tool to send their data: FTP.
Why FTP Falls Short For Today’s Business Requirements
FTP, or File Transfer Protocol, was one of the first protocols developed for the Internet back in 1973. FTP was developed so that people could share files between computers on the Internet. It was designed by programmers to share files with other programmers with the usage meta-phor of manually copying files through a command line interface. It rapidly became a ubiquitous programmer tool but it is very unlikely that it would ever have become a business tool had there existed reasonable alternatives.
When FTP is used in a business environment it is typically implemented as follows: An FTP administrator creates one or more FTP directories where files that need to be shared are put. People who want access to these files are granted access to one or all of these directories. Recipients (or downloaders) download files through a browser from the directories they have access to.
For business collaboration, FTP is often unfamiliar, inconvenient, and difficult to fit into the normal work flow. However, FTP falls short as a scalable business application in several other areas that are more serious and more costly than the issue of inconvenienced business users.
Lack of security is the most dangerous shortcoming of FTP
When FTP was designed, the security environment was much more benign. Now, with the need for greater controls and tracking of digital assets, FTP represents a security risk for most companies. Security and control have become the responsibility of the over-taxed IT administrator, who must minimize file exposure to the wrong parties, delete files, setup and manage accounts, maintain complex file directories, and securely distribute passwords.
Frequently, the system breaks: passwords are shared amongst multiple users, files are left for months in FTP directories and confidential documents may be exposed. Many of the security vulnerabilities have been alleviated with new flavors of FTP (e.g., SFTP, FTPS, EFTP) which typically require that special client programs be installed on users’ computers. However, requiring ad-hoc recipients to install a program for file delivery imposes a time consuming overhead, which limits adoption.
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