Maureen O'Gara

CipherCloud, the cloud information protection start-up, is moving its encryption platform to Box.com. It's supposed to make it safer for organizations that use Box' ostensibly secure file-sharing widgetry.

The move is also supposed to encourage cloud adoption by those spooked at the mere thought of putting data in the cloud despite the cloud's obvious collaborative and cost advantages.

CipherCloud's open platform provides encryption, tokenization, malware detection and user activity auditing to forestall downloads of confidential content via security policies.

Its 256-bit encryption gateway detects and encrypts sensitive information in any field or document in real-time before it's sent to the cloud. The encryption key stays with the customer, ensuring that organizations retain control over data in transit and at rest in the cloud.

Box says CipherCloud won't impact its functionality or usability. It's also way more flexible than what Box rival DropBox has on offer.

Besides the additional level of security and control it brings Box, CipherCloud's technology also meets data privacy, residency and regulatory compliance standards.

Mutual customers - particularly organizations in financial services, healthcare, e-commerce and technology - can leverage the solution to meet industry compliance mandates including GLBA, PCI, HIPAA, HITECH, PIPEDA, ITAR and EU Data Protection.

CipherCloud founder and CEO Pravin Kothari says "Our CipherCloud for Box application further strengthens our position as the security gateway to the $109 billion cloud computing market. For Box, we see this move as further broadening their enterprise market opportunity by giving their customers total control over their information, wherever it is stored."

CipherCloud can integrate with deployed DLP solutions such as Symantec, Websense and RSA to leverage existing DLP policies

The start-up, which is backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Index Ventures and T-Venture, the venture capital arm of Deutsche Telekom, claims to secure 100 million records at 50 enterprises and have 1.2 million active users including folks at three of the top four US banks, two of the four top Australian banks and two of the top five Canadian banks. Box may push its technology into SMBs.

Kothari say the start-up, which is supposed to be able to support any cloud application, saw 500% growth last year, currently has an eight-figure run rate and should see 300% growth this year. File sharing and the BOYD craze are probably the company's biggest prods to growth.

CipherCloud, which should be brought into Box accounts and leads, should run $9 a year a month.

It's not clear when all the widgetry will be ready.