OneDirect (ODCEM Technologies Private Limited)
Effective Date
August 22nd, 2018
The OneDirect development center in Bangalore is under 24x7 security protection, at both premises level and floor level to ensure only authorized individuals have access to the building and the OneDirect office. At the premises level, the building’s perimeter is secured by barriers and guards. At the floor level, security guards and smartcard readers/Biometric scanners are present to authorize individuals before entry. Employees are granted access to the office only after authorization using smart cards or Biometrics. Critical locations in the office are accessible only to authorized individuals.
Important documents are stored in cabinets that can only be accessed by pre-authorized individuals. The office is equipped with surveillance cameras and their footage is monitored periodically by authorized individuals. Fire alarms and water sprinklers are in place to detect and mitigate damage in the unlikely event of a fire. Regular fire drills are also conducted by the premises management team to educate employees about emergency evacuation procedures. A policy has been implemented to approve and regulate visitor access to the building. The office is provided with 24x7 power supply, supported by an alternative uninterrupted power supply system to ensure smooth functioning in the event of power failure. OneDirect hosts its application and data in industry-leading Google Cloud, Amazon Web Services and E2E networks whose data centers have been thoroughly tested for security, availability and business continuity.
For more details, please read the GCP Whitepaper, AWS Security Whitepaper and E2E networks policy.
All of OneDirect products are hosted in Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform and E2E networks (India). The infrastructure for databases and application servers is managed and maintained by the cloud service providers. At OneDirect, we take a multifaceted approach to application security, to ensure everything from engineering to deployment, including architecture and quality assurance processes complies with our highest standards of security.
The application is initially protected by Google Cloud firewall which is equipped to counter regular DDoS attacks and other network related intrusions. The second layer of protection is OneDirect’s own application firewall which monitors against offending IPs, users and spam.
While the application can be accessed only by users with valid credentials, it should be noted that security in cloud-based products is a shared responsibility between the company and the businesses who own those accounts on the cloud. In addition to making it easy for administrators to enforce industry-standard password policies on users, our products also come with features aimed at securing business data on the cloud:
It should be noted that all account passwords that are stored in the application are one-way hashed and salted.
OneDirect uses a multi-tenant data model to host all its applications. Each application is serviced from an individual virtual private cloud and each customer is uniquely identified by a tenant ID. The application is engineered and verified to ensure that it always fetches data only for the logged-in tenant. Per this design, no customer has access to another customer’s data. Access to the application by the OneDirect’s development team is also controlled, managed and audited. Access to the application and the infrastructure are logged for subsequent audits. The in-line email attachment URLs for the product are public by design, to enable us to embed links within the email for end-user ease. This can be made private on customer request.
Our engineers are trained in industry-leading secure coding standards and guidelines to ensure our products are developed with security considerations from the ground-up. A security review is a mandatory part of application engineering (development and construction) process at OneDirect. The security review leverages static code analysis tools, in addition to manual reviews, to ensure adherence to our highest standards.
Besides functional validation and verification, the quality assurance process at OneDirect also subjects application updates to a thorough security validation. The validation process is performed by a dedicated app security team with ethical hackers whose goal is to discover and demonstrate vulnerabilities in the application. An update to the application does not get the stamp of approval from the quality assurance team if vulnerabilities (that can compromise either the application or data) are identified.
Deployments to production servers are performed only by trusted and authorized engineers. Only very few pre-authorized engineers have access to OneDirect’s production environment. In order to view and inspect access logs, engineers need to go through a committee of authorized employees who are above a certain grade, who will then deliver the logs to them after validating their purpose.
Post-deployment monitoring is done by a dedicated 24x7 NOC team that monitors the application for suspicious activities or attacks. The application is engineered to detect and alert the NOC and SOC team about suspicious activities and abnormal load situations in the infrastructure. An escalation matrix up to two levels of engineers has been defined to address contingencies that might occur.
An information security team carries out periodic comprehensive application audits. The tests are performed with the help of static analysis tools and aided by manual analysis. Network penetration tests and other black box tests are performed to help identify security vulnerabilities in the application.
OneDirect takes the protection and security of its customers’ data very seriously. OneDirect manages the security of its application and customers’ data. However, provisioning and access management of individual accounts is at the discretion of individual business owners. The OneDirect development team has no access to data on production servers. Changes to the application, infrastructure, web content and deployment processes are documented extensively as part of an internal change control process. The security review mandates that each version is compliant with the company’s internal policies and standards. Our products collect limited information about customers - Name, email address, office address, and phone - which are retained for account creation.
OneDirect takes the integrity and protection of customers’ data very seriously. All data in transit is encrypted using FIPS-140-2 standard encryption over a secure socket connection for all accounts hosted on OneDirect.in. For accounts hosted on independent domains, an option to enable a secure socket connection is available. Application logs are maintained for a duration of 1 years or as per requests by our customers. Customers’ data is backed up in two ways:
Cloud Platform Redundant architecture exists such that data is replicated in real-time to at least two data centers. The data centers are connected through multiple encrypted network links and interfaces.
Different environments are in use for development and testing purposes, access to systems are strictly managed, based on the principles of need to do/know basis appropriate to the information classification, with Segregation of Duties built in, and reviewed on a quarterly basis.
When an account is deleted, all associated data is destroyed within 90 business days or as per request by OneDirect customer. OneDirect products also offer data export options which businesses can use if they want a backup of their data before deletion. For more information refer to our Privacy Page.
OneDirect understands that formal procedures, controls and well-defined responsibilities need to be in place to ensure continued data security and integrity. The company has clear change management processes, logging and monitoring procedures, and fallback mechanisms which have been set up as part of its operational security directives. An information security committee is present to oversee and approve all organization-wide security policies.
Operational security starts right from recruiting an engineer to training and auditing their work products. The recruitment process includes standard background verification checks (including verification of academic records, past employment checks, reference checks, etc.) on all new recruits. All employees are provided with adequate training about the information security policies of the company and are required to sign that they have read and understood the company’s security-related policies. Confidential information about the company is available for access only to select authorized OneDirect employees.
Employees are required to report any observed suspicious activities or threats. The human resources team takes appropriate disciplinary action against employees who violate organizational security policies. Security incidents (breaches and potential vulnerabilities) can be reported by customers via email: clientcare@onedirect.in
OneDirect maintains an inventory of all information systems used by employees for development purposes in an internal service desk, aided by automated probing software that assists in tracking changes to these systems and their configurations. Only authorized and licensed software products are installed by employees. No third parties or contractors manage software or information facilities, and no development activity is outsourced currently.
In order to test the resilience of the hosted application, the company employs an external security consultant and additional ethical hackers who perform penetration tests. This is always conducted in an architecturally equivalent copy of the system with no actual customer data present. The production system is never subject to such tests. Should an individual attempt such a test in the production environment, it will be detected as an intrusion, and the source IP will be blocked. An alert will then be raised to the NOC and SOC team who shall attend to the incident.
The company has a privacy notice, approved by an internal legal counsel, available publicly at Privacy Policy
Network security is discussed in detail in this section from the perspective of the development center, and the network where the application is hosted. The OneDirect office network where updates are developed, deployed, monitored and managed is secured by industry-grade firewalls and antivirus software, to protect internal information systems from intrusion and to provide active alerts in the event of a threat or an incident. Firewall logs are stored and reviewed periodically. Also, the access to production systems are always through a multi-factor authentication mechanism.
All OneDirect products are hosted in GCP, with security managed by the cloud service provider. The NOC and SOC teams monitor the infrastructure 24x7 for stability, intrusions and spam using a dedicated alert system. Every six months, end-to-end vulnerability assessments and penetration tests are performed. The OneDirect application has an in-built spam protection system for businesses that use it, while the NOC team monitors and blocks individual accounts and IP addresses which attempt to access the OneDirect applications.
All formal processes and security standards at OneDirect are designed to meet regulations at the industry, state, federal and international levels. OneDirect adheres to strict data security, access, integrity policies, among other principles defined in the safe harbor framework. As the processors of personal information on behalf of our customers, we follow their instructions with respect to the information they control to the extent consistent with the functionality of our service. In doing so, we implement industry standard security, technical, physical and administrative measures against unauthorized processing of such information and against loss, destruction of, or damage to, personal information as more fully described in OneDirect’s privacy notice.
OneDirect privacy practices are in line with requirements of GDPR. We are ISO 27001:2013 compliant (September 30th 2018 onwards). Our data centers are hosted in GCP who are ISO 27001, SSAE-16 and HIPAA compliant.
For more information regarding our GDPR Compliance refer to this link
At OneDirect we take the protection of our customer's data very seriously. If you have found any issues or flaws impacting the data security or privacy of OneDirect users, please write to clientcare@onedirect.in with the relevant information so we can get working on it right away. We ask that you do not share or publicize an unresolved vulnerability with/to third parties. If you submit a vulnerability report, the OneDirect team and associated development teams will use reasonable efforts to:
If you have any questions or doubts, feel free to get in touch with us at clientcare@onedirect.in, and we’ll get back to you right away.
