Transcript of a discussion on how a driver risk management software provider protects their business customers from risk by protecting their own IT assets and workers using Bitdefender.
Listen to the podcast. Find it on iTunes. Download the
transcript. Sponsor: Bitdefender.
Dana Gardner:
Welcome to the next edition of BriefingsDirect.
I’m Dana Gardner,
Principal Analyst at Interarbor
Solutions, your host and moderator.
 |
| Gardner |
Security and privacy
protection increasingly go hand in hand, especially in sensitive industries like
finance and public safety. For driver risk management software provider SambaSafety protecting their business
customers from risk is core to their mission -- and that begins with protection
of their own IT assets and workers.
Stay with us now as we learn
how SambaSafety adopted Bitdefender
GravityZone Advanced Business Security and Full
Disk Encryption to improve the end-to-end security of their operations and
business processes.
To share their story, please
join me in welcoming Randy
Whitten, Director of IT and Operations at SambaSafety in Albuquerque, New
Mexico. Welcome, Randy.
Randy Whitten: Thank
you.
Gardner:
Randy, you have a very interesting company. Tell us about SambaSafety, how big
it is, and your unique business approach.
 |
| Whitten |
Whitten:
SambaSafety currently employs approximately 280 employees across the United
States. We have four locations. Corporate headquarters is in Denver, Colorado. Albuquerque,
New Mexico is another one of our locations. There’s Rancho Cordova just outside
of Sacramento, California, and Portland, Oregon is where our transportation division
is.
We also have a variety and
handful of remote workers from coast to coast and from border to border.
Gardner: And
you are all about making communities safer. Tell us how you do that.
Whitten: We
work with departments
of motor vehicles (DMVs) across the United States, monitoring the drivers
for companies. We put a partnership together with state governments, and
third-party information is provided to allow us to process reporting for critical
driver information.
We seek to transform that data into action to protect the businesses and our customers from driver and mobility risk. We work to incorporate top-of-the-line security software to ensure that all of our data is protected while we are doing that.
Data-driven driver safety
Gardner: So,
it’s all about getting access to data, recognizing where risks might emerge
with certain drivers, and then alerting those people who are looking to hire
those drivers to make sure that the right drivers are in the right positions.
Is that correct?
Whitten: That
is correct. Since 1998, SambaSafety has been the pioneer and leading provider
of driver risk management software in North America. SambaSafety has led the charge
to protect businesses and improve driver safety, ultimately making communities
safer on the road.
Our mission is to guide our
customers, including employers, fleet managers, and insurance providers to make
the right decisions at the right time by collecting, correlating and analyzing motor
vehicle records (MVRs) and other data resources. We identify driver risk and enable
our customers to modify their drivers’ behaviors, reduce the accidents, ensure
compliance, and assist with lowering the cost, ultimately improving the driver
and the community safety once again.
Gardner: Is
this for a cross-section of different customers? You do this for public sector
and private sector? Who are the people that need this information most?
Whitten: We do
it across both sectors, public and private. We do it across transportation. We do
it across drivers such as Lyft
drivers, Uber drivers, and transportation drivers -- our delivery carriers,
FedEx, UPS, etc. -- those types of customers.
These transportation drivers are delivering our commodities every day -- the food we consume, the clothes we wear, the parts that fix our vehicles, all what's essential to our everyday living.
Gardner: This
is such an essential service, because so much of our economy is on four wheels,
whether it’s a truck delivering goods and services, transportation directly for
people, and public safety vehicles. A huge portion of our economy is behind the
wheel, so I think this is a hugely important service you are providing.
Whitten:
That’s a good point, Dana. Yes, it is very much. Transportation drivers are
delivering our commodities every day -- the food that we consume, the clothes that
we wear, also the parts that fix our vehicles to drive, plus also just to be able
to get like those Christmas packages via UPS or FedEx -- the essential
items to our everyday living.
Gardner: So,
this is mission-critical on a macro scale. Now, you also are dealing, of course,
with sensitive information. You have to protect the privacy. People are
entitled to information that’s regulated, monitored, and provided accordingly.
So you have to be across-the-board reducing risk, doing it the right way, and
you also have to make your own systems protected because you have that sensitive
information going back and forth. Security and privacy are probably among your
topmost mission-critical requirements.
Securing the sectors everywhere
Whitten: That
is correct. SambaSafety has a SOC 2 Type
II compliant certification. It actually is just the top layer of security
we are using within our company, either for our endpoints or for our external
customers.
Gardner: Randy,
you described your organization as distributed. You have multiple offices,
remote workers, and you are dealing with sensitive private and public sector information.
Tell us what your top line thinking, your philosophy, about security is and
then how you execute on that.
Whitten: Our
top line essentially is to make sure that our endpoints are protected, that we
are taking care of our employees internally to be able to set them up for
success, so they don’t have to worry about security. All of our laptops are
encrypted. We have different types of levels of security within our
organization, so that gives all of our employees a way to ease their comfort so
that they can concentrate on taking care of our end customer.
Gardner:
That’s right, security isn’t just a matter of being very aggressive, it also
means employee experience. You have to give your people the opportunity to get
their work done without hindrance -- and the performance of their machine, of
course, is a big part of that.
Tell us about the pain points,
what were the problems you were having in the past that led you into a new
provider when it comes to security software?
We were seeing threats get through the previous antivirus solution, and the cost of that solution was increasing month over month. Every time we'd add a new license it would seem like the price would jump.
Whitten: Some
of the things that we have had to deal with within the IT department here at
SambaSafety is when we see our tickets come in, it’s typically about memory
usage as applications were locking up the computers, where it took a lot of
resources to be able to launch the application.
We also were seeing threats
getting through the previous antivirus solution, and then just the cost, the
cost of that solution was increasing month over month. Every time we would add a
new license it would seem like the price point would jump.
Gardner: I
imagine you weren’t seeing them as a partner as much as a hindrance.
Whitten: Yes,
that is correct. It started to seem like it was a monthly call, then it turned
into a weekly call to their support center just to be able to see if we could get
additional support and help from them. So that brought up, “Okay, what do we do
next and what is our next solution going to look like?”
Gardner: Tell
me about that process. What did you look at, and how did you make your choices?
Whitten: We
did an overall scoping session and brought in three different antivirus
solutions providers. It just so happens that they all measured up to be the
next vendor that we were going to work with. Bitdefender came out on top and it
was a solution that we could put into our cloud-hosted solution, it was also
something that we could work with on our endpoints and also to be able to
ensure that all of our employees are protected.
Gardner: So you
are using GravityZone Advanced Business Security, Full Disk Encryption, and the
Cloud
Management Console, all from Bitdefender, is that correct?
Whitten: That
is correct. The previous solution for our disk encryption is just about
exhausted. Currently we have about 90 percent of our endpoints for disk
encryption on Bitdefender now and we have had zero issues with it.
Gardner: I
have to imagine you are not just protecting your endpoints, but you have
servers and networks, and other infrastructure to protect. What does that
consist of and how has that been going?
Whitten: That
is correct. We have approximately 280 employees, which equals 280 laptops to be
protected. We have a fair amount of additional hardware that has to be
protected. Those endpoints have to be secured. And then 30 percent of
additional hardware, i.e. the Macs that are within our organization, are also
part of that Bitdefender protection.
Gardner: And
everyone knows, of course, that management of operations is essential for
making sure that nothing falls between the cracks -- and that includes patch
management, making sure that you see what’s going on with machines and getting
alerts as to what might be your vulnerability.
So tell us about the
management, the Cloud Console, particularly as you are trying to do this across
a hybrid environment with multiple sites?
See what’s secure to ensure success
Whitten: It’s
been vital for the success of Bitdefender and their console that we can log on
and we can see what’s happening. It has been very key to the success. I can’t say
that enough.
And it goes as far as information
gathering, dashboard, data analytics, network scanning, and the vulnerability
management - just being able to ensure our assets are protected has been key.
Also, we could watch the alerting that happens to ensure that the behavior is not changing from machine intelligence or machine learning (ML) so that our systems do not get infected in any way.
Gardner: And
the more administration and automation you get, the more you are able to devote
your IT operations people to other assets, other functions. Have you been able
to recognize, not only an improvement in security, but perhaps an easing up on
the man hours and labor requirements?
Whitten: Sure.
The first 60 days of our implementation I was able to improve return on
investment (ROI) quickly. We were able to allow additional team resources to
focus on other tickets and also other items that came into our work scope
within our department.
Bitdefender was already out there managing itself. It was doing what we paying for it to do. It was actually a really good choice for us. The partnership with them is very solid, we are very pleased with it, a win-win situation for both of our companies.
Bitdefender was already out
there, and it was managing itself, it was doing what we were paying for it to
do -- and it was actually a really good choice for us. The partnership with them
is very solid, we are very pleased with it, it is a win-win situation for both of
our companies.
Gardner: Randy,
I have had people ask me, “Why do I need Full Disk Encryption? What does that
provide for me? I am having a hard time deciding whether it’s the right thing
for our organization.”
What were your requirements
for widespread encryption and why do you think that’s a good idea for other
organizations?
Whitten: The
most common reason to have Full Disk Encryption is you are at the store,
someone comes in, they break into your car, they steal your laptop bag or they
see your computer laying out, they take it. As the Director of IT and Operations
for SambaSafety, my goal is to ensure that our assets are protected. So having Full
Disk Encryption on board that laptop gives me a chance to sleep a little easier
at night.
Gardner: You
are not worried about that data leaving the organization because you know it’s
got that encryption wrapper.
Whitten: That
is correct. It’s protected all the way around.
Gardner: As we
start to close out, let’s look to the future. What’s most important for you
going forward? What would you like to see improve in terms of security,
intelligence and being able to monitor your privacy and your security
requirements?
Scope out security needs
Whitten: The
big trend right now is to ensure that we are staying up to date and Bitdefender
is staying up to date on the latest intrusions so that our software is staying
current and we are pushing that out to our machines.
Also just continue to be right
on top of the security game. We have enjoyed our partnership with Bitdefender
to date and we can’t complain, and for sure it has been a win-win situation all
the way around.
Gardner: Any
advice for folks that are out there, IT operators like yourself that are
grappling with increased requirements? More people are seeing compliance
issues, audit issues, paperwork and bureaucracy. Any advice for them in terms
of getting the best of all worlds, which is better security and better
operations oversight management?
Whitten: Definitely
have a good scope of what you are looking for, for your organization. Every
organization is different. What tends to happen is that you go in looking for a
solution and you don’t have all of the details that would meet the needs of
your organization.
Secondly, get the buy-in from
your leadership team. Pitch the case to ensure that you are doing the right
thing, that you are bringing the right vendor to the table, so that once that
solution is implemented, then they can rest easy as well.
Every company executive across
the world right now that has any responsibility with data, definitely security
is at the top of their mind. Security is at the top of my mind every single day,
protecting our customers, protecting our employees, making sure that our data stays
protected and secured so that the bad guys can’t have it.
Gardner: I’m
afraid we will have to leave it there. You have been listening to a sponsored
BriefingsDirect discussion on how driver risk management software provider
SambaSafety protects their business customers from risk, beginning with the
protection and management of their own IT assets and workers.
And we have learned how
SambaSafety adopted Bitdefender GravityZone Advanced Business Security and Full
Disk Encryption to improve the end-to-end security of their distributed
operations and important business processes.
So please join me now in
thanking our guest. We have been here with Randy Whitten, Director of IT and Operations
at SambaSafety in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Thank you so much, Randy.
Whitten: Thank
you, Dana. I appreciate it.
Gardner: I’m Dana Gardner, Principal Analyst at Interarbor Solutions, your host and moderator for this ongoing series of BriefingsDirect discussions. A big thank you to our sponsor, Bitdefender, for supporting these presentations.
Lastly, thanks to our audience
for joining. Please pass this along to your IT community, and do come back next
time.
Listen to the podcast. Find it on iTunes. Download the transcript. Sponsor: Bitdefender.
Transcript
of a discussion on how a driver risk
management software provider protects their business customers from risk by
protecting their own IT assets and workers. Copyright Interarbor Solutions,
LLC, 2005-2020. All rights reserved.
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