Encryption Startup Vera Offers Digital Data Protection

Throughout much of the 2000s, content producers (primarily music and movie companies) attempted to protect their intellectual property through the aggressive use of digital rights management (DRM) technology. Many consumers find DRM frustrating and annoying, and numerous companies have started releasing consumer multimedia content without DRM controls.

The need and desire to protect intellectual property remains strong in the business community, however, where the focus is increasingly on “intellectual rights management,” or IRM.

In an attempt to meet that need, Vera, formerly known as Veradocs, has emerged from stealth mode and announced a new data security solution designed to give companies total control over their information, regardless of where and when the information is viewed.

“Vera approaches data security with the mindset that information is bound to travel beyond firewalls and endpoints in today’s age of ubiquitous information sharing and collaboration. We are introducing epic and truly transformative offerings that protect all forms of corporate and user data, regardless of how long it’s online, where it travels or what platform hosts it,” said Ajay Arora, CEO of Vera. “We’re empowering companies to uphold the integrity of data, even if it falls into the wrong hands. Expect to see new and innovative solutions from us in the coming months that expand our security approach to other ways people share and work.”

Data Signed, Sealed, and Delivered

Unlike more familiar consumer DRM, which relied on security measures baked into the media or file delivered to the end user, Vera takes advantage of digital wrappers and the growing corporate comfort with cloud applications.

An employee who needs to send sensitive or proprietary information to someone outside a company using Vera, just right-clicks on the particular file and selects the appropriate policies and permissions for accessing the file. These can include the name of the person authorized to view the content, whether access is time-limited, whether the end user can alter, copy, or take a screenshot of the data, and whether it can be forwarded to other individuals.

Once the policies and permissions have been sent, the Vera software securely encrypts the data and creates a metadata wrapper containing the information. When the receiver tries to open the file, the metadata wrapper checks with the Vera server to ensure access is authorized; if so, the receiver is sent a key to decrypt and view the data.

Vera gives the sender the option to modify or revoke the policies and permissions at any time, and a complete audit trail is maintained of who accessed the data and what actions they took with it.

Security on Any Device

One of the chief advantages offered by Vera’s approach to IRM is that it is device and network agnostic. The metadata wrapper can check in with the Vera servers from any device, and verify whether access is permitted.

Corporate managers and IT departments will appreciate the fact that Vera can offer increased security for data without having to store or access the underlying data itself. The only information relevant to Vera’s service is the metadata wrapper, and not what is stored within it.