Shepherd Or Sheepdog? -How To Enforce Company Policies Designed To Protect Your Data

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...reduce the likelihood of it being leaked and more easily identify the source of any breach in the event that an employee is acting maliciously. Ensure your physical and IT based security systems can talk to one another - link CCTV sequences and desktop screenshots with user logins or entry to secure areas - to provide a visual audit trail of events, creating a highly effective holistic security system.

• Identify cattle grid opportunities - How easy is it for an employee to print out a restricted document, and walk out of the door with...

...it? Can they siphon data out on a USB drive, iPod, smartphone; or attach sensitive documents to webmail? Do you have a policy on social networking? Dialog prompt boxes that ask the user if they wish to proceed, before attaching a sensitive file to an email or printing out a confidential email, could prevent a data breach. Enforce similar rulesets on mobile computing devices to those used on fixed endpoints, only permitting users to view data that matches their access privileges on the corporate network.

• Shepherd your company’s data assets Vault applications are capable of simply encrypting files - ensuring that they are stored, copied or transmitted in a secure format. The value of allowing your staff to work unhindered by security is often underestimated. Enabling employees to encrypt data at the point of creation on the desktop can go a long way towards reaching the balance between usability and security. Individuals are often unaware that their actions constitute a potential data breach. Alerting employees to any action that conflicts with security procedure, or warning them when they access restricted documents, provides a gentle reminder on policy. Solutions that mentor rather than simply blocking activity... continued on page four >

 

 

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