Virtru and Ohalo Partner to Deliver AI-Driven Data Discovery, Classification, and Governance for Sensitive Unstructured Data

New Joint Solution Bridges Data Discovery and Persistent Enforcement, Automating Classification-to-Encryption for Federal Agencies and Regulated Enterprises

Virtru, the leader in data-centric security, and Ohalo, the enterprise file governance company, announced the availability of their integrated solution that automatically discovers, classifies, labels, and encrypts sensitive data at scale.

The integration connects the AI-driven classification capabilities of Ohalo Data X-Ray with the Virtru Data Security Platform, enabling organizations to remediate years of unprotected files across shared drives, federal repositories, and hybrid-cloud environments in a single automated operation. Once remediated, protected files remain governed and controlled by data owners, regardless of where they travel.

Traditional data security approaches create a dangerous gap between knowing where sensitive data lives and actually protecting it. Organizations invest heavily in data discovery and classification tools, yet sensitive files remain exposed across contractor laptops, partner networks, and downstream systems once shared. The Virtru + Ohalo integration eliminates this gap by automatically triggering persistent protection the moment files meet policy criteria — transforming static inventories into continuous, automated protection.

Discover with Ohalo, Govern with Virtru

The Virtru + Ohalo integration closes the gap between data discovery and data protection through a seamless, automated pipeline:

• Discover, Classify and Label: Data X-Ray scans documents at hundreds of thousands of words per second, classifying what is inside using three layers: Natural language processing and machine learning for semantic precision, generative AI for document-level context, and your own rules for sensitivity and business logic, moving beyond simple keyword matching to truly understand what data contains. Every file is labeled automatically as part of the same pass, replacing manual labeling that is neither trustworthy nor scalable at enterprise volumes.
• Encrypt and Protect: Once Data X-Ray classifies and labels sensitive files, the integration automatically converts them to the Trusted Data Format (TDF), wrapping each object in encryption and a granular access policy that travels with the data. The Virtru + Ohalo solution inherits classification tags and sensitivity markers to trigger corresponding TDF policies, maintaining consistent protection across the data lifecycle.
• Govern Continuously: Virtru enforces persistent access controls on every protected object, requiring both human and non-human entities to authenticate before decrypting — ensuring data remains fully under the owner’s control wherever it travels, with the ability to revoke or update access at any time.
• Maintain Compliance: The solution addresses critical challenges for organizations subject to CMMC Level 2, NIST SP 800-171, and CUI protection requirements, as well as regulated enterprises navigating HIPAA, GDPR, and FTC Safeguards Rule obligations.

Also Read: CIO Influence Interview with Hugo Dozois-Caouette, CTO and Co-founder at MaintainX

“Organizations need to protect data at the object level, with security and governance controls that remain attached to each file throughout its lifecycle,” said John Ackerly, CEO and Co-Founder of Virtru. “Our partnership with Ohalo makes that possible by connecting intelligent discovery and classification directly to persistent TDF-based protection. Together, we’re enabling customers to continuously govern sensitive data, update access policies as context changes, and maintain agency over their information, wherever it travels.”

The integration enables organizations to encrypt massive backlogs of legacy files in a single automated workflow — solving the “cold start” problem that has stalled many governance initiatives. When policies or sensitive terms change, Data X-Ray can re-crawl data sources and re-encrypt files with updated attributes. A built-in dry run capability allows administrators to test encryption and decryption behavior before applying changes across their entire data estate.

“Organizations are drowning in unstructured data scattered across air-gapped, on-premise, and hybrid-cloud environments,” said Kyle DuPont, CEO and Co-Founder of Ohalo. “A label is only as good as what’s behind it, and labels applied by hand or inherited from metadata are neither trustworthy nor scalable. Data X-Ray opens every file, classifies and labels what is actually inside it, not just what the metadata claims. That is the foundation modern data security demands. By partnering with Virtru, we’re enabling our customers to move beyond static inventories to active, persistent protection that extends everywhere the data travels. This integration ensures that classification drives enforcement, and enforcement stays current with classification, creating a continuous security loop that adapts to mission and threat context, both internally and externally.”

At the core of this integration is the Trusted Data Format (TDF), an open interoperability standard for data-centric security invented by Virtru Co-Founder Will Ackerly during his tenure at the National Security Agency. TDF has been adopted as the data protection standard for national defense and intelligence missions across the United States and allied partners globally, with the Intelligence Community standardizing classification and control markings within the TDF specification.

The Zero Trust Data Format (ZTDF), derived from TDF, is the first interoperable data security standard that bridges the gap between the US IC/DOW and existing NATO STANAGs — making the Virtru + Ohalo integration directly relevant to coalition environments where interoperability is mission-critical.