Security

Architecture
Guide

A holistic approach
to service virtualization

A Soonr White Paper

Dedicated Geo-Redundant
Data Center Infrastructure
Soonr takes a holistic approach towards security,

Soonr uses a co-location model for deployment of

incorporating a variety of structures and mechanisms

Soonr owned and operated equipment and software,

at various layers within the Soonr service architecture.

utilizing the rack space, power, cooling and physical

The following descriptions convey the breadth and

security of major world-class SSAE 16 audited data

depth of security considerations that have become a

centers. These facilities are a classified as Tier 3 or

cornerstone of the Soonr Workplace service.

better with N+1 fault tolerant systems guaranteeing

As opposed to the common virtualized approach

99.982% availability.

to cloud services, wherein cloud service providers

Soonr operates data centers in several different

lease processing and storage capacity from Internet

geographical regions, including the United States,

infrastructure providers, all Soonr hardware and

Canada and Denmark, and is planning further

software in each data center is 100% owned, operated,

expansion into other regions. Within each region,

and managed by Soonr. In typical virtualized cloud

two levels of redundancy are provided. First, within

environments, service applications and customer

each data center, redundant servers and file storage

data actually share processing and storage platforms

ensure that data center level failures can be isolated

in a time-sliced manner, resulting in a minimum of

and resolved quickly. Second, within each region, at

separation between independent operating domains.

least two independent data centers are physically

With the dedicated data center approach that Soonr

distanced and isolated from each other, thus providing

has invested in, nothing operates on any Soonr

protection from higher-level data center failures,

hardware or software processing or storage platform

or broader Internet related failures. This dual-level

except Soonr services.

geo-redundancy ensures maximum availability and

True 100% isolation of the Soonr service eliminates the

protection against data loss.

possibility of experiencing any service interruption,

The physical presence of data centers in separate

performance degradation or malware infection that

regions also means that data does not leave the region;

might otherwise be caused by adjacent applications.

it stays in the United States for U.S.-based customers,

Combined with multi-level regional and data center

in the European Union for EU-based customers (in

redundancy, the Soonr infrastructure represents one of

compliance with EU Safe Harbor and EU Country

the most secure, reliable and available cloud service

policies), and in Canada for C.A.-based customers (in

architectures available today.

compliance with PIPEDA and local regulations).

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2014 Soonr, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Summary

Logical Access Security

Co-location model with HW and SW 100% owned,

All Soonr application servers are protected with OS

operated and managed by Soonr

Geo-redundant, Tier 3, SSAE16 Audited data
centers (two per region)

security modules that apply Discretionary Access

Control and Mandatory Access Control policies to
all server processes, thus ensuring that no software

Complete regional data set in each data center

process can be gainfully subverted.

Complete regional server setups in each data center

All connection pathways within the Soonr

Data center redundancy using RAID6 mirrored

infrastructure are highly regulated as to the kinds

backup with replication

Data stored redundantly within each data center
Modular clustered server farms for service
scalability, redundancy and protection
SLAs for availability (99.982%), response time,
service restoral

SAS 70 / SSAE 16 Audits

In the rapidly changing landscape of cloud services,
companies that handle sensitive information, such as in
the finance and medical sector, find that they are under
increasing scrutiny over their information processing
controls. Soonr data centers are audited against
SAS 70 / SSAE 16 criteria for system reliability and
security, thus providing assurances regarding adequate

of traffic that are allowed between various internal

server endpoints. Any network traffic that does not
meet the expected data flow patterns is immediately
interrupted and reported to monitoring personnel
through alerts. All known attack vectors are
specifically prohibited.

Comprehensive Monitoring
All of the Soonr regional data centers are monitored
24 hours a day, 365 days a year, by equipment service
and operations staff, who also have immediate access
to Soonr engineering personnel in the event that it
becomes necessary. Co-location with major world-class
data center industry partners ensures that physical and
environmental security is unsurpassed.

oversight over the controls utilized in the processing

Soonr utilizes dedicated software monitoring

of information. Similarly, Soonrs own internal security

components that are designed to track and evaluate

controls are audited against SSAE 16 criteria for

the operation of servers, networking equipment,

employee policies, physical and logical access controls,

applications and services within the Soonr service

intrusion detection and testing, service reporting,

infrastructure. This also includes monitoring of

security incident procedures, training, change control

resources such as processor load, memory usage and

and configuration management. In this manner,

disk space usage.

Soonr services can serve as a foundation upon which

customers can build their SAS 70 / SSAE 16 compliant
data processing and storage policies and practices.

Alerts regarding performance or potential security

issues are automatically distributed to several on-call
staff via SMS and email.

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2014 Soonr, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Testing, Risk Assessment and

Compliance

Data Encryption and Authentication

Soonr makes use of independent 3rd-party testing,

in transit and in storage, using 256-bit AES-encryption.

analysis and assessment services. Soonrs multi-faceted

Furthermore, in order to maximize the separation

approach to testing and risk assessment incorporates

between files, a different unique rotating encryption

the following elements; 3rd party penetration testing of

key is used for each file. None of the encryption keys

Web, Agent, APIs, Periodic SAS/SSAE audits and Daily

are stored in the clear in any non-volatile storage,

Hacker Safe updates.

but rather are encrypted and stored under the

Soonr follows the Safe Harbor Principles published

by the United States Department of Commerce with
respect to the transfer of personal data from the
European Union to the United States of America.
Soonrs Privacy Policy, available at http://www.soonr.
com/privacy, details certain policies implemented
throughout Soonr to comply with Safe Harbor.
Soonr complies with the Health Insurance Portability
and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA). Soonrs

All files handled by the Soonr service are secured, both

protection of a master key. Authentication is ensured

through the use of VeriSign certificate-based server
authentication, which ensures that the users agent will
neither connect, nor cooperate with any server other
than those that comprise the Soonr service. Even in the
unlikely event of a successful attack on Internet DNS or
routing infrastructure, which is quite outside the control
of Soonr or any other SaaS provider, Soonrs certificatebased authentication.

Privacy Policy (http://www.soonr.com/privacy/) details

Admin Policy & Account Management

certain policies implemented throughout Soonr to

Administrative Policy management and Account

comply with HIPAA.

Management are particular strengths within the context

of Soonr service administration and management, and
provide for an extensive set of controls and processes
that will ensure flexible and effective security policy
enforcement. Admin-level account management and
policy control includes mechanisms that allow Admins to:
Create, edit, disable and delete Members,
Connections, Groups and other Admins
Convey to full Members the right to create Connections
Control the ability of Members to create private Backups
Review, assign and manage storage quota
among Members
Set and enforce Password Policies
Establish Session Policies: Used to control the
lifecycle of login sessions

307 Orchard City Drive, Suite 206, Campbell, CA 95008 | 408.377.8500 | 855.377.8500 | www.soonr.com
2014 Soonr, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

In addition to these account-oriented policies and

is known as multi-factor authentication that requires

features, Soonr provides an additional set of powerful

not only a password and username, but also something

features that facilitate extensive Project control

that a Soonr Workplace Team Member has with them.

capabilities. Known as the Manage Projects feature,

This can be a physical hard token or a piece of

which is available as part of the Enterprise plan, this set

information only they know or have immediately at

of highly-privileged controls permits Team Admins to

hand, which may have been obtained through a soft

review and modify sharing and synchronization rights,

token. Soonr Workplace Enterprise Team Admins can

and also to view, download and delete any Project or

set policies to require 2FA as part of the web, agent or

document resources. Specifically, Admins can:

mobile device login flow into Soonr services for added

Review and modify the sharing of Project resources

that was established by other Members
Review and modify the synchronization status of
any Member devices

layer of access control.

Content Policies
Access to content stored within Soonr is controlled
and policed at different levels within the security

View, download and delete any shared Projects,

Folders or Files owned by any Member
This set of Admin controls thus allows IT personnel
to audit resource sharing and modify such Member
sharing activities as necessary in order to enforce
compliance with company guidelines.

architecture. Within the confines of overarching user

policies that are established by Admins and enforced
by the Soonr service, users are free to establish their
own content access policies as they share Projects with
others, effectively dictating the type and method of
access afforded to others.
When Projects or sub-folders are shared with other

Password and Two-Factor

Authentication Policies

Members or Connections, their access permissions can

be specified at the appropriate level of granularity. In

Soonr Workplace Team Members are authenticated

both the Soonr Workplace Pro and Enterprise Plans,

into the Soonr service against databases in

access permissions to Projects or Sub-folders can be

Soonr, Active Directory or a number of 3 party

specified as Read-Only, Modify, Create & Modify and

systems that have been integrated with Soonr.

Full Access (including delete) based on the role of the

When user authentication is performed against

Member. In addition, content owners can also control

Soonr databases, Soonr Workplace Enterprise

the ability for other Members to Reshare resources that

Team Admins can set global policies for password

they have shared.

rd

expiration (days), re-use cycle times, recent password

interval (days), as well as password complexity and
allowed failed login attempts.

Soonr Workplace Team Members can establish

and manage URL-based Public Links to Project,
Folder and File resources, thereby establishing a

Two-Factor Authentication, also known as 2FA, two-

significant degree of granular control over content

step verification or TFA, is an extra layer of security that

access. Public Links can be Member-specified with

307 Orchard City Drive, Suite 206, Campbell, CA 95008 | 408.377.8500 | 855.377.8500 | www.soonr.com
2014 Soonr, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

expiration dates as well as access passwords, and

can also be specified to either constrain or expand
the access methodology as follows:

Global Policies
Global Policies allow a Soonr Workplace Enterprise
Admin to set global policies for allowing Public Links,

View-only on web (Soonr Online)

restricting unlock over-ride to only the Project Owner

Download Enable / Disable

and disabling Remote Access. Remote Access refers

Read-Only (no edit)

Read-Only PDF Version (Source files converted to
PDF by Soonr Workplace)
Upload new or modified files
Additional protection of user content includes
several cooperating mechanisms that defend against

to the ability to remotely access a computer from any

web browser, and requires the installation of the Soonr
Workplace Desktop Agent onto the target computer.
While this is an exceedingly useful feature, some
Admins might feel that higher security and better
control are achieved by disabling Remote Access.

accidental deletion or overwriting of user files.

Session Policies

While the File Lock mechanism enables users to

Session Policies allow a Soonr Workplace Enterprise

voluntarily cooperate during the collaborative editing

Admin to specify global session timeout, remember-

of documents, the file versioning and file branching

me and IP address display policies for added control of

mechanisms operate automatically to ensure that,

user sessions into Soonr services.

even in the event of file conflicts or overwriting of

files, no content is lost.
As Members edit and save subsequent versions of
a file, the file versioning feature is a back-end Soonr
Workplace service process that automatically retains
the older over-written versions of all files for up to
180 days. At any point during that period, Members
are able to access old versions through the web
(Soonr Online).
File branching, a similar back-end automatic process,

IP Address White List Policies

The IP Address White List is also commonly referred to
as an Access Control List (ACL) in computer networking
security terminology. This feature enables the Soonr
Workplace Enterprise Admin to place restrictions
on service login. Specifically, service login can be
restricted based upon a combination of the mode of
access (browser, mobile app, desktop agent) and the
source IP address.

ensures that any attempt by two people to edit and

General Device Policies

save the same file at the same time will be captured

Device policies supported by Soonr Workplace enable

as a file conflict, and will result in a branching of the

Admins to ensure that lost or stolen computers or

file name at that point. One file will retain the original

mobile devices can be removed from backup and sync

filename, while the second file will have the second

plans (if supported) eliminating the possibly of data

Members name appended to the file. This ensures that

leakage to unintended recipients. Soonr Workplaces

both sets of edits are retained.

remote data wipe capability allows Admins to

specifically target individual user accounts, Projects,

307 Orchard City Drive, Suite 206, Campbell, CA 95008 | 408.377.8500 | 855.377.8500 | www.soonr.com
2014 Soonr, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

folders, files or devices/computers, maintaining a

wall of access security around corporate data. Soonr
Workplaces Device Policies specifically address:
Lost device protection (no credential/id
persistence)
Encryption of all session related information on
local device
Role-based User Policies

Active Directory Integration

for User Deployment
Enterprise-class account management and
authentication for users and groups is supported
within Soonr Workplace through the Active Directory
Integration feature, which is available as part of the
Enterprise plan. This feature enables IT personnel
to import user and group account metadata from
Active Directory into Soonr Workplace, and to force

Mobile Device Policies

all Soonr Workplace user authentication through

Mobile Device Policies allow the Soonr Enterprise

Active Directory. Soonr does not maintain any log-in

Admin to set global policies on allowing/disallowing

information during user authentication, but acts as a

the ability to create content, edit content, and

proxy between the user and Active Directory servers.

export content to secondary or third party

Admin can configure a policy to require a PIN

Application Management
Authentication

passcode on mobile devices each time the Soonr

Mobile device data is encapsulated within the mobile

Workplace mobile app is accessed by the user.

app for greater content control. One of the more

Furthermore, an option is provided to set a failed

unique aspects of the Soonr Workplace service offering

passcode threshold, and to erase mobile device

includes integrated Office-style viewing, creation and

data upon passing that threshold, also known as a

editing tools for mobile devices. Currently supported

poison pill.

on iOS and Android platforms, these integrated apps

applications on mobile devices. Similarly the Team

Mobile Device Policies are designed to improve

common device management tasks such as
deleting all of the Soonr content on a stolen or lost
smartphone or tablet. As an example of a remotewipe policy, a Soonr Admin can check the Require
Passcode policy, Enable Erase Data policy, and set the
Failed Passcode Threshold value to 5. In this example,
if a device is stolen and the Soonr Mobile app is
launched, it will block access to any Soonr data unless
the correct pin code is entered. After 5 incorrect pin
code entries, the Soonr Mobile app will clear all user
data out of its cache and remain locked.

ensure that mobile viewing, creation and editing

by users is done within the confines of the Soonr
Workplace Mobile App. This effectively ensures that
mobile-accessible data remains within an envelope of
privacy, minimizing exposure of company data to 3rdparty applications.

Reporting
Beyond privacy-oriented security features such as
encryption, access policies and account management,
Soonr Workplace implements a set of advanced
reporting capabilities that are specifically designed
to support auditing for compliance with company

307 Orchard City Drive, Suite 206, Campbell, CA 95008 | 408.377.8500 | 855.377.8500 | www.soonr.com
2014 Soonr, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

policies. These advanced reporting features, which are

Reports can be customized and filtered to include or

available as part of the Enterprise plan, enable Admins

exclude a variety of events based upon various criteria,

to generate and export custom reports in order to

such as date range, user ID, file name, IP address,

establish audit trails and analytics on the following

method of access and more. Reports can be either

types of events:

viewed on-screen or exported to either PDF or XLS

Team Events: Account management events for

all users and groups
User Access Events: Device access, PC access,

formats. When reporting on user accesses, any user

access event can be mapped to specific source IP
addresses, and can be viewed on a geographical map.

User logins, IP address mapping

Project Events: All changes to any Projects,
folders, or files
User Report: List of all Team Members, their roles,
storage quota, creation timestamp and last login
Computer Report: List all desktop agents by
Member, computer type, OS and Agent versions,
installation timestamp and last connect timestamp
Mobile Device Report: List of all mobile clients
by Member, mobile device type, OS, and App
versions, number of logins and last login timestamp

About Soonr
Embraced by users and endorsed by IT, more than 150,000 businesses trust Soonr for
their secure file sharing and collaboration needs. Soonr Workplace empowers mobile
teams and organizations to do business faster from any device anywhere. We deliver
our services through a worldwide network of cloud service providers, VARs, solution
providers, and system integrators. Founded in 2005 and headquartered in Silicon
Valley, we are privately-held and backed by major investors.

307 Orchard City Drive, Suite 206, Campbell, CA 95008 | 408.377.8500 | 855.377.8500 | www.soonr.com
2014 Soonr, Inc. All Rights Reserved.