GoAnywhere: Linoma’s Anti-Dropbox

January 14, 2014 Alex Woodie

It’s hard not to like Dropbox. You simply drag your files to the pretty blue icon on your desktop and voila! They’re instantly accessible from multiple devices–in fact, any Web browser in the world! The only problem: Dropbox isn’t that secure and has a history of security problems. For a business that takes security seriously, a proper managed file transfer (MFT) solution is a much better choice for moving files. Last week, MFT vendor Linoma Software updated its GoAnywhere product to give it some of the ease-of-use features that Dropbox is known for.

It’s not that Dropbox can’t be secure. Even Microsoft eventually made Windows secure enough that hackers stopped bothering it so much. The folks behind Dropbox have taken steps to improve security, such as adding two-factor authentication (2FA), end-user encryption, and email notifications.

No, the main problems with Dropbox are (A) It’s so incredibly easy to use that it invites bad file-sharing behavior on the part of employees who are time-strapped and looking for shortcuts (which probably describe all of us at some point in time); and (B) the service does not comply with industry security regulations, i.e., it does not keep an audit log of activity for compliance purposes.

“We know services like Dropbox and Google Drive are really tempting because they’re so easily accessible,” says Steve Luebbe, lead software engineer for GoAnywhere, in a press release. “We also know that third-party file sharing is a nightmare for the IT team, especially those charged with maintaining compliance with HIPAA, PCI DSS, SOX, and other regulations.”

With the version 3.4 update to GoAnywhere Services offering, Linoma has added features that make the product more like Dropbox. For starters, GoAnywhere Services users can now share files and folders with other users from within the Web Client. Just as with other clients, the software allows administrators to audit where the data is going, thereby ensuring regulatory compliance.

Linoma also bolstered collaboration capabilities in its Secure Mail interface, an email alternative that’s used for sending large or sensitive files that users would otherwise try to distribute as email attachments. With version 3.4, Linoma has added a new ‘Reply To Sender’ feature that makes collaboration easier. “Not only can users send email messages and attachments securely, but with 3.4, recipients can now reply with messages using the same security features,” Luebbe says.

The Nebraska company has done a lot in the area of LDAP and Active Directory integration with this release. The software can automatically synchronize user accounts from LDAP or AD servers, the company says. “IT admins can now synchronize users from their LDAP or AD server,” Luebbe says. “During the synchronization, GoAnywhere automatically creates or modifies user accounts from your LDAP or AD server based on the templates you define.”

This release also brings multi-lingual capacities in the form of support for Spanish, French, German, and Japanese in the Web Client component. Version 3.4 (which is not a major release by virtue of its number, but which appears to bring lot of new features) also introduces a new address book, new email address rules, drag and drop support, Secure Mail password settings, a Secure Mail Inbox, and encrypted folders.

Linoma’s GoAnywhere line (including GoAnywhere Services, GoAnywhere Director, and GoAnywhere Proxy) runs on an array of servers, including IBM i, Unix, Windows, Linux, and Linux for z/OS operating systems. The software supports FTP, FTPS, SFTP, HTTP, HTTPS, SMTP, POP3, and IMAP protocols. GoAnywhere Services is designed primarily for organizations that need to do a lot of file transferring activities with external customers and business partners over the Web, whereas GoAnywhere Director is designed primary for use by larger organizations with internal MFT needs, and thereby offers some additional capabilities not found in GoAnywhere Services, including support for PGP and AES encryption, file conversion capabilities, and the capability to do direct database connections. GoAnywhere Proxy is a reverse proxy solution designed to provide an additional layer of security.

Linoma will be hosting a webinar on the new features in GoAnywhere Services version 3.4 later this month. Keep an eye on the IT Jungle events calendar for the exact day and time. In the meantime, here’s a video on the new release to hold you over: www.goanywheremft.com/support/release-notes/goanywhere-services.