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As a design platform for teams that build products together, Figma places security at the heart of its operations. With a growing global footprint and a commitment to enabling business agility, Figma partnered with Material Security to secure their email and productivity suite and streamline security operations. The result? Scalable solutions, seamless integrations, and strong confidence in their defenses against modern threats.
Scaling Security Operations for a Global Team
Figma’s security team needed tools that enable cutting-edge security without adding complexity for the business. Material’s seamless integration with native email workflows encouraged quick adoption among Figma employees, without adding extra work for the security team.
“I was very impressed with Material as a product that integrated into how people natively use email and had an extremely low cognitive overhead for use,” said André Pinter, Security Manager of Figma’s AI Security Team. “Our users are very quick to report suspicious messages and we get a lot of value out of the herd immunity features.”
Saving Engineers’ Time with Automation
Figma’s users weren’t the only ones who found Material simple to incorporate into their day-to-day. For Figma’s security team, Material’s automated detection and remediation capabilities significantly reduced time spent on phishing response.
“I liked how Material integrated seamlessly into GSuite, protecting users from phishing much more quickly than the security team could if responding manually,” said Brad Girardeau, Security Manager of Platform Security. “Material removed a lot of toil from detecting and responding to phishing attacks. I like how easy it is to find related messages to make sure we’ve caught all variants of an attack.”
“We were able to drive a ton of value from Material with an extremely low amount of time invested by our on-call engineers.” André Pinter, Security Manager of AI Security team
“I've seen amazing improvements in our ability to react, relying on well-trusted mechanisms from Material. With just one click, we can disable phishing emails and remove them from people’s inboxes,” said Dev Akhawe, Head of Security. This efficiency meant Figma’s engineers could focus on higher-value tasks.
Smooth Operators
Material’s API-based security approach and implementation support ensured Figma’s operations remained unaffected by potential bugs or security incidents. Material’s deployment was seamless, minimizing friction during rollout. The team’s customer-first mindset and proactive support left a lasting impression. “Every member of the Material team cares about security and customer success,” noted Dev.
The Material team stood out not just for their expertise but for their willingness to share insights on emerging trends and threats. “I’ve really enjoyed working with Mike Tran and others. They’re super engaged and interested in helping us think about emerging trends and threats with practical advice and product thinking,” says André.
Innovating with a Modern Approach to Security
A refreshing UX backed by cutting-edge thinking
For a company like Figma, known for its product design excellence, the usability of Material’s interface was a standout feature.
“It's rare to find modern security tools with a pleasant, usable UI. Being at Figma, we are obviously attracted to well-designed interfaces, and Material's interface was just so smooth and slick,” said Dev.
Material’s innovation is more than skin-deep. Their unique approach to productivity suite security, moving beyond the inbox to leveraging both structured defenses and user engagement, aligned perfectly with Figma’s progressive security philosophy.
“We were attracted to Material's structured, powerful approach and this novel way of thinking about phishing protection,” said Dev. “It just really felt in line with Figma security's approach of doing cutting edge security while still enabling the business.
Conclusion
Partnering with Material Security has allowed Figma to scale its security operations, reduce engineer toil, and confidently defend against email-based threats—all while maintaining business agility.
“I feel a lot more confident about our defenses against phishing and confidential data leakage. Material helps me sleep better at night.” – Dev Akhawe, Head of Security
Combining innovative technology, thoughtful design, exceptional support, and a unique approach to cybersecurity, Material Security has become an essential part of Figma’s security ecosystem.
Video Transcript
My name is Dev, and I'm the Head of Security at Figma. We are using Material's Phishing Protection, Data Protection for Email, Data Protection for Drive, and Posture Management. We were attracted to Material's structured, powerful approach and this novel way of thinking about phishing protection.
It just really felt in line with Figma security's approach of doing cutting edge security while still enabling the business. Material's approach of API security as opposed to a gateway-based approach gives me trust and faith that if there is a bug, which we've never had with Material, but if there is a bug, there will be no impact to our business operations. And also Material's single-tenant approach to securing our data gave me high confidence that our data will be safe and isolated from any risk from other customers.
I was just blown away by the innovation and the new idea of how to approach email security. The idea that we can use herd immunity to scale out our operations. Being able to use our employees as a way of defending against phishing was really attractive to me. It's rare to find modern security tools with a pleasant usable UI, and being at Figma, we are obviously really attracted to well-designed interfaces and Material's interface was just so smooth and slick.
I've seen some amazing improvements in our ability to react, relying on well-trusted, well-supported mechanisms from Material — that with just one click, we can disable phishing emails, remove them from people's inbox, and rewrite them. We found that Material's response processes have allowed us to scale as we have grown internationally and have almost a 24x7 SOC-less environment.
The Material deployment was painless. The Material team was able to help set up the environment quickly. It's been a pleasure to work with the Material Security team. I can say with confidence that every member of the team cares about security and cares about customer success.
I personally think one of Material's most unique capabilities is that it's designed with security and reliability. The single tenant approach, the quality of the interface, the quality of the monitoring, and being cloud-first makes Material really reliable and powerful.
Based on the data, we see that it has significantly up-leveled our security program. I, as Head of Security, feel a lot more confident about our defenses against phishing, our defenses against confidential data leakage, and that's really unique.
It helps me sleep better at night.
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