Intellectual Property (IP) and sensitive data such as customer files are perhaps the most important assets for any business. Yet, protection of IP and sensitive data is something that is all too often neglected or inadequate in today’s networked world. Email, the Internet and the proliferation of removable storage devices have made it too easy to leak confidential information, either deliberately or accidentally.
A few years ago IDC reported that 84% of data leakage was generated internally, by employees. This loss of confidential data can be both costly and embarrassing. Newspapers are littered with stories about confidentiality breaches, including employees that send product plans to competitors; hospitals that accidentally send patient information to the wrong person; executives that accidentally hit the 'reply to all' button inadvertently revealing information about future acquisitions to third-parties; and more.
Marshal's content security solutions can play an important part in protecting your confidential data. “ The key to preventing data leakage is vigilance combined with a multi-layered approach to protecting confidential information. This layered approach may encompass policy, education, technology and procedure.
All staff members should be aware of the importance of confidential information and their obligations to protect it. Employees should be trained to know how to handle and distribute information that is confidential or proprietary in nature. Policies for protecting confidential information require common sense and best practice.
Regulatory compliance and legal obligations are now key motivators for securing and protecting confidential information.
A well-known example is the US HIPAA legislation (the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act). One of the main aims of HIPAA is to address the security and privacy of health data. This places significant obligations on the healthcare industry to ensure the privacy of patient information.
The financial sector, national government agencies, local governments and education providers are all seeing increasing governance and legal obligations for securing confidential information, too.
A key part of confidential data protection is an organization’s Acceptable Use Policy (AUP). Some parts of an AUP that relate to confidential data are:
Proprietary information should not be divulged improperly. Highly confidential information should not be sent out via email or the Internet without encryption and should not be allowed to be copied onto removable storage devices.
Employees should be informed that they could be held responsible for the content of all communications that they store or send using email or the Internet. They could also be held accountable for copying confidential data onto removable storage devices.
Employees should also be informed about copyright issues relating to: - Electronic copies of documents obtained via email or the Internet
Unauthorized copying of copyrighted material onto removable storage media such as USB sticks.
“When an organization has clear policies and sound education practices in place, technology can play a big part in protecting confidential information.”
Marshal's content security and endpoint security solutions can play an important part in protecting your confidential data.
MailMarshal can prevent data leakage via email by:
WebMarshal controls "back door" data leakage by:
Data Leakage (PDF, 400KB)
Marshal EndPoint Security prevents data leakage by:
