Steve Wujek on eDiscovery Security

Tech Freaks + Futuristic Tech = Nimble eDiscovery Software

Steve: First and foremost, TCDI’s data centers are designed, engineered, and managed by a team of some of the smartest engineers and cyber experts the IT industry has to offer. Secondly, within TCDI’s data centers you’ll find some of the most advanced cutting-edge (oftentimes bleeding-edge) technology and equipment that exist in the data center realm. Put those two together and you have the ability to deliver changes quickly and securely to our eDiscovery clients.

The heart of eDiscovery is client data.

Steve: At its heart, eDiscovery is about data, more specifically, client’s data. That data needs to be massaged, searched, culled, encrypted, accessed, etc.; so why are you paying an eDiscovery ‘cloud-based vendor’ to turn around and dump your data to another cloud vendor like AWS or Azure, leaving all the security in the hands of AWS or Azure?

Client eDiscovery data requires optimum security.

Steve: Companies like AWS or Azure give you a security toolbelt to use but it’s still up to you to know how to use them, and more importantly, use them correctly. AWS and Azure have vastly improved their security but those tools are not enabled by default! Make no mistake, going to the cloud and using a cloud provider like AWS, Azure or Google has been a fantastic tool to help companies of all sizes offload the complexity of an IT infrastructure. But by its very nature, an eDiscovery company is sought out and entrusted with client’s data because the ‘science of eDiscovery’ requires an extra level of security and complexity centered around that data.

TCDI invests in bleeding-edge security practices.

Steve: At TCDI, we believe in, and have practiced for over 30 years now, the concept that we handle our client’s data directly in our own data center, NOT hand it off to a cloud vendor who deals in bulk IT infrastructure.

Outsourcing eDiscovery security is risky and expensive.

Steve: Many eDiscovery vendors love to exalt how much capital they have invested in network infrastructure and security for the data you entrust to them. When really, what they have done is pay huge, sometimes exorbitant, sums of money, to what amount to rental fees paid to AWS or Azure who have carved out a SaaS or PaaS environment in one of their data centers. The eDiscovery vendor couldn’t tell you the difference between a next-gen firewall and a next-gen blender! 

How an eDiscovery vendor can proclaim they invest in their people and technologies, yet have no actual security or cybersecurity personnel on staff directly securing and touching that data is kind of odd to me. I guess investing in actual engineers and cyber experts that understand how to secure data wasn’t as important to them as investing in more staff to charge you higher fees for the fees they pay to AWS or Azure?