Colgate-Palmolive is a caring, innovative growth company that is reimagining a healthier future for all people, their pets and our planet. Focused on Oral Care, Personal Care, Home Care and Pet Nutrition, the Company sells its products in more than 200 countries and territories. The Company’s commitment to innovation has seen it shift to a cloud-first model and prioritize IP data protection.
Netskope One Advanced Analytics – Understand and manage exposure to cloud risks through a 360° view of activity throughout the Netskope platform.
Netskope One Data Security – The security of your data has never been more at risk than it is today in the AI era. It’s time to re-imagine how you protect it from threats.
Netskope One CASB Inline & API – With Netskope One CASB, a core component of Netskope One Security Service Edge (SSE), you can confidently adopt cloud applications and services – without sacrificing security.
Significantly increased visibility of cloud apps
Unified networking and security, improved user experience
Increased control over data movement
As more software vendors are providing cloud based solutions, Colgate-Palmolive saw an opportunity to evolve its data protection strategy. “Visibility of employee interactions with cloud based applications was limited. Traditional firewall solutions showed us access logs, but not specific granular data points. We needed this detailed level of data in order to implement our data protection strategy,” says Antony Afonso, Director, Security and Network Engineering, Colgate-Palmolive.
As a global, multinational company that sells its products in more than 200 countries and territories, Colgate needed a vendor solution which had global scale to match their business requirements. Delivering an exceptional employee experience was a decision criteria when selecting a technology platform. “Our network protection had to be transparent to the employee,” says Alexander Schuchman, Chief Information Security Officer, Colgate-Palmolive. “Employees open their laptops, and connect instantly. The sign of our success is that our data protection goes unnoticed, and we only interrupt the business process when we detect a security policy which needs to be enforced.”
Schuchman explains: “We must safeguard our formulas while providing employees and R&D teams with the information they need for productivity and innovation. Striking a balance between protecting data and ensuring accessibility is key.”
“Our applications must be fast, reliable, and high performing,” adds Afonso. “We must also ensure that data remains secure at all times.”
We must safeguard our formulas and recipes while providing employees and R&D teams with the essential information they need for productivity and innovation. Striking a balance between protecting sensitive data and ensuring accessibility is key.
“We sought a vendor with global reach, excellent network performance, and top-tier data inspection capabilities,” says Afonso. “Netskope met these critical requirements.”
The Netskope NewEdge Network has a unified, global cloud on-ramp providing secure, low-latency access to web and cloud applications. The solution also delivers data loss prevention (DLP) and Advanced Analytics through Netskope One CASB.
During implementation, Colgate’s information security team was responsible for DLP rules and data protection, with the networking team overseeing firewall rules and low-latency traffic routing. “Network performance is vital,” comments Afonso. “If something’s not loading, or if it’s too complicated to login, employees will look for ways to bypass the controls.”
Colgate’s information security organization has built a strong partnership with the company’s R&D organization. “We worked closely with R&D to understand their data before incorporating the data into our system controls,” says Schuchman. “We also looked at how we could refine R&D procedures to better protect sensitive information. Educating employees regarding the risks of data exposure was a key part of our strategy.”
A major goal was to prevent insider threats. This involved setting up rules to watch for company IP potentially leaving the organization and to action suspicious activity, such as large bulk file uploads. Afonso emphasizes, ”We’re securing our investment in new formulas and keeping our IP safe within the company.”
Netskope is a valued partner for us, seamlessly integrating networking and security into a single platform and streamlining our data protection processes.
Colgate can now protect its IP, while ensuring that data can be shared with trusted third-parties to maintain business continuity.
Schuchman outlines the difference: “This capability gives us insights into data flows, clarifying who engages with our documents and how, including when employees are sharing data externally with approved third parties.”
“It has transformed our visibility into how employees use sanctioned and unsanctioned cloud applications and provided us with greater control over where they can upload data” adds Afonso. As well as reducing risky actions, the information security team can use Netskope to educate employees on safe data handling practices. “This has fostered a strong partnership with the business functions, leading to an improved security posture,” Afonso says.
The company’s data security posture is improved by having a unified networking and security protection strategy. “We are delivering an optimal user experience for hybrid work and robust protection through a unified zero trust policy layer, regardless of user location,” Afonso says.
Where data breaches are identified, the security team is immediately notified. Schuchman says: “Our SOC receives instant alerts from Netskope systems, enabling us to act swiftly or conduct investigations. This helps from a compliance perspective.”
The Netskope solution has proved effective in this regard, catching a user red-handed as they exfiltrated data. The IT team was able to trace the user’s actions, pinpoint the sensitive data, and log critical timestamps. This enabled IT to collaborate with legal and data privacy teams on appropriate measures and mitigate corporate data loss.