While the romanticized image of the genius toiling alone in his garage with a breakthrough idea is woven into tech mythology, it doesn’t survive contact with reality. The complexity of modern business demands orchestrated effort and cross-pollination of ideas. Secure collaboration tools promote safe information exchange among employees, business partners, and contractors.

What Is Secure Collaboration?

Secure collaboration is the ability of teams to work seamlessly, often across geographic boundaries and limitations, in a secure manner that protects the information stored or transmitted. Secure collaboration tools facilitate this interaction, allowing groups, whether in remote, onsite, or hybrid working models, to work safely with data.

What Are the Benefits of Using Secure Collaboration

Secure collaboration tools are crucial assets for businesses, especially those that handle sensitive information because they offer the following benefits:

• Secure file sharing and exchange: Allowing employees and team members to share information that is pertinent to a project without compromising intellectual property or proprietary information. Hence, you have the confidence to share files without fear of their contents being seen by prying eyes.
• Productivity and communication: Emailing back and forth can be cumbersome. Collaboration tools save time and resources — no need to gather people inside a physical conference room — by serving as a virtual meeting room.
• Speed: It facilitates quick communication across geographic locations, allowing participants to seek feedback and respond promptly with tasks actioned immediately.
• Organization: Secure collaboration tools allow you to track the progress of tasks and files.
   

The Core Features to Look for In a Secure Collaboration Software

Secure collaboration fortifies the security perimeter around applications by implementing the following features:

End-to-End Encryption

Secure collaboration tools implement robust, end-to-end encryption to protect data used in the application. This prevents hacking and man-in-the-middle attacks launched to compromise its data.

Data Loss Prevention

Secure collaboration tools integrate data loss prevention mechanisms to ensure data on its platform isn’t misused, lost, or otherwise accessed by unauthorized users.

Multi-factor Authentication

In addition to using password credentials, secure collaboration tools typically implement multi-factor authentication. These additional layers of security are used to verify identities and their associated roles.

This is typically implemented by converting the password credentials into an authorization token that is subsequently used to navigate the user from one application to another.

Secure Data Collaboration and Dissemination

One of the primary use cases of collaboration tools is to ensure people can work with data in a collaborative yet secure manner. Therefore, in addition to disseminating information securely, these tools typically provide backup and project management capabilities.

Top 5 Secure Collaboration Tools for Your Business

Here is a rundown of the top five platforms for secure collaboration:

1. Digital Guardian Secure Collaboration

Use case and audience

Fortra’s Digital Guardian Secure Collaboration is a secure collaboration platform that provides a seamless, worry-free environment, enabling organizations to confidently collaborate and track their intellectual property wherever it goes.

Features

• Digital rights management to secure personal information and intellectual property.
• The nimble ability to track where files are opened in real-time, regardless of whether they were copied, moved, or downloaded onto an untrusted device. 
• Robust data encryption ensures document security, whether at rest, in use, or in transit.
• Zero trust file security with the ability to dynamically alter file permissions. 
   

Pros

Gives businesses the ability to limit what people can do with their files.
Easy adoption since no software installation is required.
Reduces the possibility of unintentionally sharing privileged content with unauthorized third parties. 
The ability to establish how long collaborators like contractors and third-party can access assets.
 

Cons

It doesn’t provide tiered pricing, thereby placing it outside the reach of most small businesses.
 

2. Microsoft Teams

Use case and audience

Microsoft Teams is suited for corporate workspaces. It helps facilitate real-time communication and collaboration among a group of people working on projects or common interests. Moreover, it is backed by Microsoft’s deep expertise in security products.

Features

• Video conference for online meetings.
• Unlimited chat with coworkers and customers.
• Project management and collaboration features are all in one place.
• Ability to record team meetings and produce transcripts.
• Provide live captions in meetings for over 30 languages.
   

Pros

• Boosts team productivity
• Enables users to apply increased focus on work
• Unlike most enterprise applications, Microsoft Teams is easy to implement
   

Cons

• Confusing and difficult-to-search file structures
• Less intuitive to use than Slack.
• It is constrained with limited flexibility.
   

3. Slack

Use case and audience

Slack is among the foremost and most popular collaboration tools for teams in the market. It transforms how you work by providing a central place for your team to collaborate effectively.

Features

• Custom retention policies concerning files and messages.
• Workflow builder to automate actions and communications
• Enterprise key management to control access to data.
• Collaborative file sharing along with conversations around them.
• Ability to collaborate with teams from other organizations with Channels, Huddles, etc.
   

Pros

• It can be adopted by enterprises and small businesses alike
• Seamless integrations with popular productivity apps like Google Docs, Office 365, Google Drive, etc. 
• Simplifies teamwork by seamlessly organizing your work life. 
• Vital substitute for email.
   

Cons

• For some people, it can easily become a distraction.
   

4. Basecamp

Use case and audience

Basecamp is used for collaboration, remote team communications, and project management.

Features

• The Hill Charts feature 
• The ability to create and upload files and documents
• Attractive and intuitive user interface
   

Pros

• Simplified pricing system.
• Good document storage
• A great tool for project management. 
   

Cons

• It lacks a free plan.
• It lacks a time-tracking feature
• Topic lists get crowded because of the inability to archive unused topics.
   

5. Trello

Use case and audience

Trello is a visual collaboration tool that enables organizations intuitively manage their workflows, issue/task tracking, and projects. It provides a kanban-style, list-making interface to facilitate collaboration.

Features

• Boards to keep tasks organized and view projects from every angle. 
• The ability to execute weekly vulnerability scans, including annual data breach tests
• Built-in workflow automation with its Butler automation.Product management leveraging its roadmap capabilities to simplify projects.
   

Pros

• Trello is simple, flexible, and powerful.
• It can be accessed and used from the web, desktop, and mobile.
• Provides encrypted full backup every 24 hours.
   

Cons

• Due to scalability issues, it may not be ideal for large enterprises.
   

Learn How Fortra’s Digital Guardian Secure Collaboration Facilitates Secure Collaboration

While unsecured collaboration tools expose you to risks, Fortra’s Digital Guardian Secure Collaboration is on a quest to simplify the complexity of today’s cybersecurity landscape.

Digital Guardian Secure Collaboration understands how collaboration drives modern workplaces. Therefore, it seamlessly integrates with cloud platforms while automatically protecting your account.

Contact us to book a demo today.