Telnyx

Challenges

As a remote-first company, Telnyx saw that all roads led to Slack. “Everything happens on Slack,” explains Security Operations Project Manager, Filippo Lafronza. “With bots and automation, you could open a Jira ticket, or report an incident, and it all would end up in Slack. It’s a repository for everything.” And, as Telnyx went on to observe, that “repository” could all too easily include sensitive data sprawl. 

Sensitive data sprawl is, in essence, the commonplace sharing of PII, PCI, secrets, and credentials in places it shouldn’t be shared. If left unchecked, sensitive data sprawl can lead to privilege escalation attacks, data breaches, and noncompliance with standards like SOC 2 and PCI-DSS. However, without the right Data Leak Prevention (DLP) tool in place, data sprawl can be notoriously pervasive and difficult to address. “It was important for us to stop PII, PCI, and secret sprawl,” says Lafronza. “We wanted to have a tool that could watch our back.”

But that’s not all: It was also important for Telnyx to find a tool that streamlined their SecOps workload, rather than piling on additional tasks caused by false positives and clunky flows. For instance, before Nightfall, Telnyx would have to remediate sensitive data and coach employees manually. “But it’s different now that we have a cross-platform tool like Nightfall,” Lafronza chimes in. 

Solutions

Expanded visibility

With over a dozen native integrations and a vast library of APIs, Nightfall’s hi-res visibility and AI-powered detection engine helped Telnyx to pinpoint sensitive data sprawl across all facets of their tech landscape. In their first week of onboarding, Telnyx’s SecOps team started by implementing detection rules to locate and remediate sprawled PII, PCI, and secrets across apps like Slack, Google Drive, Jira, GitHub, Salesforce, Confluence, Zendesk, and Intercom. 

“We customized detection rules to focus on what’s really important for us.”

In addition to sending real-time alerts through the Nightfall console and in Slack, Nightfall sends a weekly digest to surface any high-priority findings. Nightfall also offers more streamlined detection, with double the precision and 4x fewer false positives than legacy DLP solutions.

“We fine-tuned our detectors, which led to fewer false positives—ultimately making Nightfall a more scalable solution.”

Scalable SecOps workflows

Telnyx leverages Nightfall’s automation for faster time to remediation, as well as for educating employees about DLP policies and best practices. “Whenever employees make a mistake, they get notified right away with context for why they shouldn’t share sensitive information.”

“Employees are our first line of defense, so it’s critical for them to understand what they should or shouldn’t share.”

Even before Nightfall, Telnyx had an established security culture; however, after folding Nightfall into their security motions, Telnyx was able to cultivate further awareness among employees. “Sometimes employees will send sensitive information without thinking about implications like privilege escalation attacks,” says Lafronza. “But if Nightfall sends them a notification, it keeps them aware about those implications and on high alert.” 

“Nightfall’s automation really gets work off your plate.”

The end result of this awareness? Hours per week saved on both remediation as well as employee coaching. As Lafronza puts it: “The less I have to interact with Nightfall, the better it’s doing its job.” 

Conclusion

By upleveling visibility across SaaS apps and integrating seamlessly into established security protocols, Nightfall was an indispensable tool when it came to enhancing Telnyx’s established security culture and streamlining SecOps workflows. “Nightfall watches your back in more ways than one.”