Business continuity, CSPs, MSP, Storage

Hillary Clinton Emails: Datto Open Letter Addresses Privacy, Security

Datto, which is cooperating with the federal government's investigation into Hillary Clinton's private email server, has issued an open letter to partners and end-customers. The letter, without mentioning the Clinton situation by name, assures partners and customers that the cloud backup provider is committed to data privacy and security.

The letter, penned by Datto CEO Austin McChord, emerges a few days after Datto confirmed it's working with the government as the FBI investigates Hillary Clinton's email server and potential backups to Datto's cloud.

Datto's Open Letter to Partners, Customers

Austin McChord
Datto CEO Austin McChord

In a letter, viewed by ChannelE2E, McChord reinforced Datto's commitment to partner and customer privacy. It reads:

To our partners and end users,

Recently you may have noticed that Datto was in the news regarding a high profile customer. This has resulted in a variety of media coverage and I wanted to take a minute to set the record straight.

Eight years ago, I started Datto in my parents’ basement as a project after college. The idea was simple - build a product to help businesses keep their data safe. I knew there was a way to do this better and less expensively than anyone had done prior. What I’ve come to realize as this business has grown is the awesome amount of responsibility that I, and the entire team at Datto, have taken on in this endeavor.

Datto protects data for thousands of businesses around the world. Every day the entire team and I are acutely aware of the trust those businesses place in us to keep this data safe. Recently, some press coverage has used pictures from our family summer picnics and after hours work events to try to paint a picture that perhaps Datto is irreverent to this responsibility. This couldn’t be further from the truth.

We care immensely about you, our customers and partners. In our recent interactions with the authorities, Datto has sought and received the explicit permission from both our partner and customer before sharing any information with any third party. The privacy and security of our customers’ data is paramount. Datto, by virtue of our channel model, does not generally know who our end users are or have the ability to access their data stored in our cloud. You can rest assured we are doing everything we can to support our partner and customer through this situation.

Datto seeks to build the world’s best disaster recovery products. Anything less simply doesn’t cut it. This is a passion for all of us at Datto.

If you have any questions or want to know more about our specific policies I welcome you to reach out to us. You can contact me personally at [email protected].

Regards

Austin McChord

Encryption Demand Likely to Skyrocket

The letter arrives as MSPs and end-customers strive to understand how customer data can remain private when stored in cloud systems. Many MSPs, based on cloud service provider advice, are now shifting to encrypted systems that allow customers to manage the decryption keys. That way, only a willing end customer can turn over decrypted information as part of a government investigation.

Disclosure: Datto is an Inaugural Sponsor of ChannelE2E, which launched Sept. 15, 2015.

Joe Panettieri

Joe Panettieri is co-founder & editorial director of MSSP Alert and ChannelE2E, the two leading news & analysis sites for managed service providers in the cybersecurity market.