Box boosts cloud security with automated classification

Box Shield
(Image credit: Box)

Box has announced that intelligent, automated classification will soon be coming to Box Shield, its advanced security solution for protecting content in the cloud.

It will now automatically scan files and classify them based on their content to help businesses detect and secure sensitive data. Box Shield is the fastest growing new product in the company's history and security-conscious and highly regulated organizations including NASA use it to to secure data in the cloud.

Chief product officer at Box, Varun Parmar provided more details on how businesses are using Box Shield to protect their content from ending up in the wrong hands while working from home in a press release, saying:

“The sudden shift to remote work has surfaced new security challenges for businesses, making it more critical than ever to keep sensitive data from getting into the wrong hands. In June alone, Box Shield helped customers protect their content by blocking shared link access to classified files over eight million times and prevented close to a million downloads of classified files. Using advancements in machine learning to automatically apply classification labels as files are uploaded or edited extends Box Shield’s ability to enable secure remote work from anywhere. This allows IT and security teams to configure and enforce policies across the enterprise at a new level of scale that would be impossible to tackle manually.”

Automated classification

Using advanced machine learning and data leakage prevention capabilities, Box Shield scans files in real-time when they are uploaded, updated, moved or copied to specified folders and automatically classifies them based on admin-defined policies. Businesses will be able to leverage its new automated classification feature to scale their data classification efforts and enforce policies across the enterprise to better comply with GDPR and other regulations.

Box Shield can now also automatically identify multiple personally identifiable information types within files including social security numbers, driver's licenses, International Bank Account Number (IBAN) codes and more. The new feature can even identify custom terms and phrases within files such as “Box Confidential”, Internal use only” and “NDA required.” Policies can easily be created that apply the appropriate classification labels to files stored in an organization's cloud storage.

The new Box Shield automated classification capabilities will begin to be available today and will roll out to eligible customers over the next month.

Anthony Spadafora

After working with the TechRadar Pro team for the last several years, Anthony is now the security and networking editor at Tom’s Guide where he covers everything from data breaches and ransomware gangs to the best way to cover your whole home or business with Wi-Fi. When not writing, you can find him tinkering with PCs and game consoles, managing cables and upgrading his smart home.