Access Control

In provisioning access, IT adheres to the principles of least privilege and role-based access control, meaning employees are only authorized the access and permissions necessary to fulfill their job responsibilities. User access reviews, including production access, are performed semi-annually. Access to the production infrastructure and supporting systems requires Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA).

Employee access is revoked within two business days of an employee's termination. Incases of involuntary termination, access is revoked immediately.

Cloud Hosting

Writesonic uses Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and Microsoft Azure as its cloud hosting providers. Writesonic's corporate offices do not host any data closets or servers; all data is stored in the US-East-1 region. Writesonic employs serverless instances across AWS, GCP and Azure to ensure high availability of all services. Kubernetes node components are hardened and have a base configuration image applied.

Data Retention

Writesonic retains data for the duration of the customer's use of the application. Customer data is removed upon request for user account deletion or upon customer contract termination. Writesonic's hosting providers, AWS, GCP and Azure, are responsible for ensuring proper sanitization of disks and physical media.

Encryption

Writesonic encrypts all customer data at rest and in transit using robust encryption methods. All data is transmitted via HTTPS using TLS1.2+ with AES256 encryption and SHA2 signatures, defaulting to TLS1.3 based on client capability. Data at rest is encrypted at the storage level using AES256. Database connections are verified usingTLS certificates and encrypted in transit using SSL.

Encryption keys are managed by and stored securely within AWS, GCP and Azure. Access to encryption keys is restricted to limited, authorized personnel and requires MFA. All key usage is logged and monitored for anomalous activity.

Endpoints

Employees are provided with company-managed workstations. These workstations are configured with disk encryption, anti-malware, and idle lockout. IT monitors employee workstations to ensure compliance with corporate policy and up-to-date patches.

Logging

Centralized logging is enabled for all production systems. Logs are reviewed for indications of compromise and alerted upon. The Security team is responsible for monitoring alert thresholds, tracking security events to resolution following the incident response plan.

Network

Writesonic's firewalls are configured to deny all incoming traffic by default. Firewall rules are reviewed at least annually. Alerts generated by the Intrusion Detection System (IDS) are sent to on-call personnel for investigation and triage. Writesonic also utilizes a WebApplication Firewall (WAF) and Content Delivery Network (CDN) to protect against common web application vulnerabilities, such as Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, and provide faster access to the application.

Personnel

The security of the Writesonic environment is the responsibility of all Writesonic employees, contractors, and temporary workers who have access to Writesonic's information systems. All employees must have a completed background check on file before starting, in addition to signing confidentiality agreements.

All employees are required to complete security awareness training upon hire and annually thereafter. The training curriculum includes phishing awareness, remote workbest practices, device security, and incident reporting. In addition to completing training, employees are required to review the employee handbook and code of conduct policy. Violations of any corporate policies may result in disciplinary measures up to and including termination.

Secure Development

Writesonic has built a secure software development lifecycle (SDLC) that includes requirements like peer code review. All code is managed in a version control repository, with branch protections in place. Access to source code requires MFA. Security at Writesonic, Inc. 4Non-standard code changes go through a change management process covering emergency changes and hot fixes. The agile process allows engineers to follow their own release cycles, deploying continuous improvements to the Writesonic application.

Third Parties

Writesonic partners with limited third parties to provide key services. These third parties, also known as subprocessors, are continuously monitored to ensure their security programs continue to meet Writesonic's standards. Writesonic reassesses its subprocessors annually, including a review of their independent audit reports and penetration test reports. The full list of our subprocessors is available at https://writesonic.com/legal/sub-processors.

Vulnerability Management

Vulnerability scans are performed daily for in-scope systems. Identified vulnerabilities are remediated in accordance with severity.