Making Office and Office365 a Web3 Secure Content Platform

Microsoft Office is a set of productivity tools that is available for desktop and also for the web. The latter is marketed as Office365. Both versions come with:

1. A Word Processor (Word)
2. A Spreadsheet (Excel)
3. A Presentation Tool (PowerPoint)
4. Email (Outlook)

You can also have Microsoft Teams, which is a Collaboration and messaging platform. Microsoft Office uses OneDrive, a cloud storage service, and SharePoint, a collaboration and document management platform.

It was SharePoint that made our dev team take a big gulp when a prospective customer came knocking and asked if they could utilize OmniIndex Dropblock within their SharePoint and Office environments. This is something we have previously done for Google Workspace and it provides a decentralized web3 file storage system so customers retain control of their files and do not store them in the productivity suite while still being able to use its full functionality – as well as adding additional security features of our own.?

The first thing we did was ask why they wanted Dropblock for Office, and the answer I believe is true of many global organizations. Their key reasons were:

• We have offices around the globe that need to share content, however due to local regulations content must not leave a specific jurisdiction.
• We need to automatically have inbound emails and faxes checked for exposed PII data prior to storage and to automatically protect/hide that data.
• We need to automatically check outbound emails for exposed PII data and other compromising information and to automatically protect/hide that data.
• We need to automatically hide all PII and Credit Card data without compromising the ability to chain information together.
• And finally, we need all of the above without getting in the way of the users ability to work.

Well, that is OmniIndex Dropblock and what we have been doing in Google Cloud! However, SharePoint is a whole different challenge as a complex and enterprise heavy Content and Document Management System.?

Not being ones to shy away from a good tech party and challenge, however, we jumped right in. Looking firstly at what SharePoint is being used for:

1. Search
2. Audit trail
3. Document ownership
4. Document life cycle

We then looked at how we could keep these while removing the storage of the documents from OneDrive to KenSai, our own Zero-Trust File system which is managed by OmniIndex PostgresBC.?

The answer, as it turned out, was surprisingly simple. Don’t!

SharePoint requires to know the Who, What, When and Where of files to be able to manage them correctly. That being the case, we implemented the OmniIndex KenSai shadow file system. What this does is create a shadow version of a file when a user saves a file inside one of the Office apps with exactly the same meta, but with Lorem Ipsum content. The actual file with its actual content is then encrypted, analyzed, and stored within the KenSai file system on the customer’s own Web3 PostgresBC instance.??

By doing this we kept SharePoint productive, useful and available for users while also being able to give the client the enhanced security and file control that they needed.??

What Benefits does OmniIndex Dropblock Bring to a Microsoft Environment?

This is an incredibly important question and actually comes to the crux of why this prospect had asked us in the first place.?

Dropblock is an extension to Productivity tools such as Google Workspace and Microsoft Office enabling customers to store their data in a fully secure environment which is external to their provider's cloud storage. This is crucial for customers who need to take back control of their data from centralized cloud systems for compliance, regulatory or personal security reasons. They can then use the productivity tools without their files ever being vulnerable to third party access.

As well as providing the OmniIndex PostgresBC security of web3, homomorphic encryption and zero-trust, Dropblock also provides additional security features.?

The biggest of these in terms of content security is REDACTION. Sections of a piece of content can be redacted with homomorphic encryption so that information is not exposed and vulnerable. The file can then be shared safely with that data redacted at all times for security and privacy.

OmniIndex Dropblock can do this automatically with data such as PII of credit card numbers etc. and it can also be trained to redact other information too within the application.??

Dropblock Content Benefits

• Full Ransomware inoculation due to the Web3 Storage
• AI Redaction of sensitive information within the content
• Encrypted Storage within an organization's own environment
• Separation of Jurisdictions within a single organization while remaining connected
• Full Text Search on encrypted content
• Full AI Semantic Search on encrypted content

Dropblock Storage Benefits

• Storage is now managed in-house across separate nodes
• Each jurisdiction can now have their own storage if required to keep inline with local privacy regulations
• Each Group, User, Document Class can have its own managed and separate encryption key (AES 256)
• No single user (including admins/Super User) is able to decrypt and view all the data as it is a zero-trust system with least privileged access?

Dropblock AI Capabilities

Dropblock comes complete with the OmniIndex AI engine: Boudica. This is a Small Language Model that NEVER requires your data to leave your storage, unlike other AI tools that use your data to train themselves globally. It can also uniquely work on the encrypted data in real-time providing insights, Semantic Search results, Analysis, content proofing for security vulnerabilities and predictions of security attacks.

• Internal (Not External Training)
• Sensitive Data Redaction
• Content analysis while editing to help secure the content from accidental PII and financial leakage
• Full Semantic Searching
• Content sharing with time limits.

In addition, Dropblock utilizes OmniIndex PostgresBC for its storage which also provides:

• Full Content Auditing
• Predictive analytics across your entire Azure and/or Google environment
• Predictive analytics on security threats to those environments
• Predictive cost analysis of these environment