Security and Multi-Channel Communication

When confidentiality, privacy and security are core to your business, you know that it’s critical to work with providers and partners that also hold these values as paramount.

In technology, as in life, it’s difficult to ‘prove a negative’ – show me that you can’t be hacked. This can only be demonstrated through highly principled and diligent business and technical practices. Symphony was established and still operates today based on this concept – foundationally secure in design and in production.

Solving the regulatory conundrum of allowing customers to use messaging applications of their choice such as WhatsApp while ensuring recordkeeping compliance for employees and executives, has created a market for various technology players to enter. However, many offer problematic solutions and approaches that capture and store the message data, but don’t pay enough attention to how it’s secured and who else can access this data. Often, this results in modified and unofficial versions of consumer applications through engineering back doors.

This type of approach can result in the use of off-the-shelf web platforms that are inappropriate for an enterprise-grade organization where security is as important as compliance. Application terms and conditions and IP licensing notwithstanding, repackaging and ‘forking’ mobile applications, and reselling the repurposed result, is an invitation for hackers to find their way into your technology and ultimately access your customer communication data.

Such approaches are inherently unstable as the owner of the underlying application can change many aspects of the code until the ‘forked’ version simply breaks. Worse still, the ‘chimeric’ nature of these applications leave them intrinsically susceptible to security holes and vulnerabilities that can then be exposed to and exploited by hackers.

Symphony does not, has not, and will not rely on unsanctioned cracked or forked versions of other companies’ products. Our solutions are based on our own patented end-to-end encrypted messaging application, which is then connected to external networks (WhatsApp, WeChat, Microsoft Teams, and more) using official APIs and other interoperability capabilities that are authorized and supported by these external network providers.

Using modified versions of consumer applications with engineered backdoors may seem a viable solution at first glance as it allows companies to meet recordkeeping requirements while allowing employees to keep the look and feel of the original application. Yet, this approach comes with serious implications regarding security, intellectual property and stability.

Maintaining a secure messaging platform with end-to-end encryption, secure client applications, safe key distribution, and a hardened infrastructure demands significant long-term investment and continuous upkeep to ensure ongoing safety and reliability. It is a complex and non-trival endeavor that Symphony proudly promotes and sustains as its core competence and market differentiator.

In a world where compliance and security do not, unfortunately, always go hand in hand, Symphony distinguishes itself by providing both. Our Messaging platform offers a comprehensive and robust approach to safeguarding confidential communications and data. This is achieved through state-of-the-art encryption, strict adherence to compliance standards, and a dependable, secure infrastructure, delivered with unwavering integrity.