10 Secure Collaboration Tools and Importance of SSL Certificates

Secure communications and collaborations are significant challenges most organizations face. With some employees connected to their data centers remotely, businesses need to ensure security protocols are enforced. One way is to secure communications between remote employees’ devices and your server through SSL certificates.

Securing communication among team members takes more than just an SSL certificate. Therefore, you need an effective tool that allows team members to communicate and collaborate and comes with pre-built security features. 

But why invest so much in a secure collaboration tool?

According to Forbes research, a retail company with 50,000 employees sends over 300 million messages. Therefore, if security measures are insufficient, a single malicious message can cause a disruptive cyberattack for organizations.

Therefore, there is no denying that you need a tool to enhance security features. This article will discuss secure collaboration tools and why SSL certificates are essential. 

Let us first understand why you need an SSL certificate for better security.

SSL Certificates for Secure Collaboration

SSL certificates are like secure badges that use encryptions to ensure your data is secure whenever a remote employee connects with the in-house server. Therefore, when an employee remotely tries to access your systems, an SSL certificate ensures that communication between two systems is secure.

It scrambles the data exchanged between two systems and makes the information unreadable for cyber attackers to prevent stolen information by cyber criminals. This is also crucial if your remote employees use their home networks which their kids also use for online gaming, which can be a security risk. Therefore, if the network of remote employees is corrupted, your systems can secure data with HTTPS protocols, benefiting from the added protection usually offered by residential proxies.

The best part about installing an SSL certificate is the amount of options you get. For example, you can choose well-known and discounted SSL types like single domain, multi domain SSL or a low cost or cheap wildcard SSL certificate to secure one primary domain and several subdomains. 

However, the most significant aspect is whether your collaboration tool supports encryptions and SSL certificates. Also, ensuring GDPR consent compliance further strengthens your data protection strategy, so take that into consideration too. Now, here is a list of top collaboration tools that support SSL certificates and encryption-based security. Therefore, here is a list of top collaboration tools that support SSL certificates and encryption-based security. 

#1. Zoom

Zoom is one of the most popular online conferencing platforms, which allows users to communicate over the Internet. It is a secure collaboration tool enabling you to collaborate with remote users worldwide through video, voice, screen sharing, and personal chat.

Zoom's key features are

• Zoom supports encryptions, and all the online meetings are end-to-end encrypted.
• It offers users the capability to record meetings.
• Businesses can leverage the screen-sharing feature for presentations and training purposes.
• Live chatting and interactions during the meeting from Zoom makes collaborations efficient.
• Comes with a pre-built whiteboard which allows users to brainstorm ideas cohesively
• Users can create polls and surveys during meetings to gather crucial data.
• Zoom allows users to hold question-and-answer sessions and segregate meetings into smaller discussion groups.
• It allows online meetings across the web, mobile applications, and desktop apps.
  

Though Zoom offers many features for secure collaborations and with the support for encryptions, you can get a low priced or cheap SSL certificate for enhanced data procession. However, where Zoom lacks is the ability to share files securely, so Slack becomes a good option.

#2. Slack

Slack is a secure collaborative tool allowing you to communicate with your team, clients, and external partners through its platform?  Its security features protect data, control access, and improve compliance with regulations like GDPR.

• Slack offers single sign-on (SSO), domain claiming, and enterprise mobility management features, ensuring higher data security.
• It encrypts the data at rest and transit with the Slack Enterprise Key Management (Slack EKM). 
• Slack allows users to set global retention policies for the preservation of files according to compliance requirements.
• It offers live chat, messaging, file sharing, and multi-channel communications for users.

Slack offers a more versatile collaboration experience than Zoom but does not come with integrations across different services like Microsoft Teams.

#3. Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams is another secure tool that provides online chat features, meetings, sharing files, and working on projects together. It is a part of the Microsoft 365 services, which offers comprehensive tools with security best practices such as service-level secure policies and network access control solutions.

Some of the key features of MS Teams are, 

• It offers a chat-based workspace with features for group and individual messaging or one-to-one chats.
• Teams offer a secure document storage environment for your information
• You can use MS Teams for online video and audio meetings 
• It offers integration with Microsoft 365 applications, adding new functionalities for your business.
• MS Teams uses security best practices like data access control and compliance with ISO 27001, ISO 27018, and HIPAA. Additionally, Microsoft Teams ensures that its security measures are continually updated to align with the evolving standards of ISO 27001, guaranteeing robust protection against emerging threats and vulnerabilities.

#4. Toggl

Toggl is a tool that helps you track time and collaborate, enabling project management. It offers higher security for all your data with critical features like encryptions and others.

Some of the critical features of Toggl:

• Users can use Toggle and track time needed for task or project completion, which helps businesses generate elaborate reports on productivity. 
• It also allows businesses to track time for invoicing purposes making operations for specific organizations easier. 
• With practical deadline-tracking features, Toggl allows users to create and assign it to team members.
• It makes sharing files, chatting, and giving task feedback easy for better team communication and collaboration. 
• Toggl integrates with tools like Slack, Asana, and Jira.

#5. Google Drive

Another great secure collaboration tool that you can use is Google Drive. It helps you store data on the cloud and share them with others over the cloud infrastructure.  With Drive, you can work on different Google services and apps like Sheets, Docs, or Slides on the cloud.

Some of the critical security features that Google Drive provides are,

• It offers two-factor authentication to ensure data access security for your crucial information.
• Every file you store in Google Drive is encrypted, ensuring higher data protection.
• It allows users to track log activity for every file access and modification, if any
• Users can control who accesses the data and what type of access is permitted.
• You can decide how long your data is kept and when it is removed by setting your policies.
• You can establish policies for retaining and deleting your data, giving you control over how long it is stored.

#6.  Asana

Asana is a task management and collaboration tool, which allows users to collaborate, plan and execute tasks. Cross-team collaborative features make Asana unique, which helps businesses manage multiple projects centrally. 

Some of the critical features that Asana offers are 

• Asana offers features like comments, mentions, and direct messaging, which makes communication efficient
• It makes sure that all the messages and data shared among users are end-to-end encrypted.
• Organizations can use Asana to create tasks, schedule meets, allocate work, and invite collaborators on specific projects. Businesses can benefit from an Asana consultant to fully leverage these features and improve efficiency.
• It backups the user data regularly to prevent any information loss.
• Asana hosts the user information in secure SSAE 16 / SOC2-certified data centers.
• It allows integration into various tools like Google Drive, Jira Cloud, and Adobe Creative Cloud.

Asana also offers integration into your existing applications and websites. However, if you are to integrate such third-party tools securing it by installing an SSL certificate can help save money and data. In addition, getting your SSL certificate from a trustworthy certificate authority for enhanced protection is crucial. 

#7. Clarizen

Clarizen is also a secure tool that you can use for collaboration and project management. It allows you to allocate tasks, manage projects, and have a well-defined work structure.

Some of the critical features of Clarizen are, 

• The collaboration capabilities of Clarizen allow team members to work together on different tasks and manage projects.
• It offers flexible workflow automation for your projects, streamlining the processes and improving productivity.
• Clarizen facilitates cross-organizational project management enabling users to collaborate across departments.
• It also enables users to customize systems settings which allows admins to configure security policies
• Clarizen supports two-factor authentication adding an extra layer of security.
• It offers different permission access levels, which makes control access easier for admins.

#8. Wire

Wire is also a great option for collaboration tools that help businesses communicate securely. It offers a platform for online conferencing, file sharing, voice calling, and instant messaging. Wire has been designed to offer secure communications with features like multi-device encryptions and Perfect Forward Secrecy (FPS) mechanism.

Some of the critical features of Wire are 

• Data that users exchange on the platform during video conferencing or screen sharing is encrypted for better security in Wire.
• It allows users to create guest rooms with specific access controls
• Wire prevents unauthorized access to data by using secure servers.
• It uses Transport Layer Security (TLS) to encrypt data between servers and clients during transit.

#9. Basecamp

Basecamp is a popular collaboration tool that seamlessly facilitates efficient project management, information exchange, and seamless communication. It has a centralized platform that enables creative collaborations, allowing businesses to improve productivity.

Some of the critical features of Basecamp are,

• Basecamp enables you to create projects and bifurcate tasks.
• You can easily share files with other team members.
• The tool also enables real-time messaging capabilities making communication effective.
• Basecamp allows you a scheduling feature making the project management seamless
• It comes with pre-built message boards, which makes brainstorming easier.

#10. Trello

Trello is also a popular project management company, which helps teams and individuals to organize tasks and workflows. It uses a visual representation for project management based on task boards. You can add documents to these boards, invite members, and collaborate with Trello boards.

Some of the critical features of Trello are,

• Trello offers a board that acts as a container that facilitates task management for users.
• Users can create multiple lists and segregate Trello boards
• Each task can have a separate card with features to add a timeline, comment, add files, and more
• Trello uses SSL encryptions to secure data exchanged between the user device and Trello’s servers
• It also backups data effectively with two-factor authentication applied for enhanced security

Key takeaways

Security is critical to collaborate in organizations with more and more emphasis on hybrid work culture. Fortunately, you can use many tools for collaboration and improved productivity.

Though these tools provide security features, having an SSL certificate is crucial in integrating them into your systems. So, find a trustworthy CA and get a discounted or cheap SSL certificate to secure integrations of communication tools to your system. In addition to SSL certificates, regularly updating your antivirus software is essential for ensuring comprehensive security across your organization's digital infrastructure.