How ThoughtSpot found clarity and confidence with MIND
See MIND in action at ThoughtSpot
“It really did feel like magic.”
Al Faiella, Senior Director of Security Engineering at ThoughtSpot
Industry
Technology, Business Intelligence
Headquarters
Mountain View, CA
Founded
2012
Challenges
Expanding data landscape
Greater efficiency for analysts
Stronger signal and visibility
Solutions
ThoughtSpot faced familiar pain points with legacy DLP tools and took action to modernize data protection with MIND to unify discovery, detection and prevention across its growing data ecosystem
See MIND in action at ThoughtSpot
“It really did feel like magic.”
Al Faiella, Senior Director of Security Engineering at ThoughtSpot
Industry
Technology, Business Intelligence
Headquarters
Mountain View, CA
Founded
2012
Challenges
Expanding data landscape
Greater efficiency for analysts
Stronger signal and visibility
Solutions
ThoughtSpot faced familiar pain points with legacy DLP tools and took action to modernize data protection with MIND to unify discovery, detection and prevention across its growing data ecosystem
Challenges
- Expanding data landscape
As collaboration and AI-driven workflows grew, ThoughtSpot needed deeper, real-time context across its IT environments - Greater efficiency for analysts
Opportunities to streamline manual steps like classification and context gathering, so analysts could focus on higher-value work - Stronger signal and visibility
ThoughtSpot wanted to prioritize higher-fidelity insights and broader visibility, especially Microsoft 365, Box and Slack
Solutions
- High-fidelity detection with context
The MIND AI-native platform detected true risks whether accidental or malicious, dramatically reducing false positives - Unified visibility across vectors
MIND provided a single platform to detect and protect data at rest and in motion across endpoints, SaaS and cloud - Seamless coverage for SaaS and more
Integrations with Microsoft 365, Google Drive, GitHub, Box, Confluence and Slack delivered insights into data movement and access
ThoughtSpot transformed its DLP program to be more resilient
ThoughtSpot is on a mission to help businesses make smarter decisions with data. As a leading AI-powered analytics company, it empowers enterprises to search, analyze and act on their data with speed and simplicity.
But as ThoughtSpot’s internal data volumes grew across the organization, so did the complexity of securing it. The security team, led by Al Faiella, Senior Director of Security Engineering, wanted a way to protect sensitive data across
“The most valuable thing that MIND brings to the table for us is the preventative nature of the product. The true P in DLP. I was blown away by the fact that I could actually, in real time, stop someone from copying, pasting sensitive information from Slack into ChatGPT.”
Al Faiella
Senior Director of Security Engineering, ThoughtSpot
Gaining clarity in a growing data landscape
ThoughtSpot’s fast-paced, cloud-first corporate environment generated vast volumes of internal information across SaaS platforms, endpoints and collaboration tools. Yet their existing data loss prevention (DLP) technology couldn’t keep up.
As their data environment continued to grow, the security team wanted deeper context around alerts so they could move even faster. As Al Faiella shared, signals from traditional DLP tools often surfaced without the level of insight needed to immediately understand intent or relevance. “They often lack context and often become just another blinking light in a sea of blinking red lights,” he explained. The team saw an opportunity to bring greater clarity on the events that truly mattered.
ThoughtSpot also wanted to enhance visibility across the collaboration and engineering platforms that power their business. With sensitive data moving through SaaS apps like Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, GitHub, Box, Confluence and Slack as well as GenAI tools like ChatGPT, the team sought a more unified, real-time view of how information traveled across these environments. Expanding that visibility meant strengthening control, enabling faster decisions and creating space for innovation without slowing teams down.
“It really did feel like magic. So as I think about MIND for the future, I think that magical feeling you get when you first turn it on is something I will always think back on, but also something I see every single day.”
Al Faiella
Senior Director of Security Engineering, ThoughtSpot
Redefining what DLP should deliver
When ThoughtSpot was looking to modernize their DLP program, they had several requirements:
- Unified discovery – A single platform to protect data across SaaS, GenAI apps and endpoints
- Context-aware intelligence – The ability to understand what data is moving, where and why, instead of relying on static policies
- High fidelity, low noise – A solution that dramatically reduces false positives and delivers prioritized issues with context to focus on
- Preventative control – Real-time prevention to stop data leaks before they happen, not after
- Scalability and simplicity – A lightweight, easy-to-manage platform that doesn’t require a dedicated team to maintain
- Trusted partnership – A vendor with both vision and expertise to unify policies, surface areas and context into one complete view
Solution: One platform, complete context and control
ThoughtSpot turned to MIND to bring clarity and control back to their data security operations.
“MIND allows us to see and protect our data across every vector — endpoints and SaaS — from a single place,” said Faiella. “It’s like having a spotlight that shines where visibility didn’t exist before.”
The deployment spanned endpoints and SaaS platforms like Google Workspace, OneDrive and Box. “Being able to lasso SaaS applications that typically escape traditional DLP was one of the most powerful parts of the platform,” he added. Within days, the team was uncovering sensitive assets, like exposed credentials and secrets, that no one knew existed.
“What stood out to me about MIND as compared to other tools I've used in the past was issue fidelity. Everything comes back to fidelity. Our ability to be able to get real quality detections out of our environment has been a real game changer and something that it's almost hard to compare.”
“A lot of tools focus on one particular area of your environment very well, but MIND does several exceptionally, and that's a rare thing to find,” said Faiella. “My overall experience with MIND has really been phenomenal. It has been the most powerful DLP tool I've used throughout my career, and I think that it's the perfect product for the perfect time.”
Impact: Strengthening insight and elevating efficiency
Since adopting MIND, ThoughtSpot has enhanced the speed, clarity and confidence of its data protection program, providing higher-fidelity insights, faster workflows and greater visibility.
- False positives reduced from double digits to a small single-digit percentage
- Alert triage time drastically cut from hours or days to minutes
- Alerts stabilized to low double-digits per week, with significantly higher fidelity
- Analyst efficiency improved freeing the team to focus on strategic initiatives
“The value we really get from MIND is, and this is no pun intended, peace of mind. I'm able to have confidence in my ability to control, define and really protect the areas that MIND is deployed in.”
Al Faiella
Senior Director of Security Engineering, ThoughtSpot
Beyond DLP: Building the future of security
For ThoughtSpot, MIND’s value extends far beyond traditional DLP.
“MIND has changed how we even think about our own security program in terms of capability,” Faiella said. “One of the great things that MIND sets us up for building an insider threat program. It's going to be a cornerstone of our security program that I'm looking to continue to build on.”
MIND transformed ThoughtSpot’s DLP program from a compliance checkbox into a strategic enabler — reducing noise, saving time and empowering security to lead with clarity. With MIND, ThoughtSpot puts DLP on autopilot, so their team can focus on what’s next.
* This customer story relates to ThoughtSpot's internal corporate security and general DLP security issues -- not the security of the ThoughtSpot analytics platform.
