Securing Corporate Documents

• By Adi Ruppin
• Oct 14, 2011

For many businesses, maintaining a competitive edge requires a collaborative line of communication, but sharing highly sensitive documents without the proper security can be dangerous if the information falls into the wrong hands. Most companies probably think they have sufficient security measures in place, but some popular solutions like the below can still leave sensitive information vulnerable:

1. E-mail encryption solutions verify that only authorized recipient can open important documents sent via email, however it requires installation of complex applications to perform the encryption and decryption and does not provide security once the document has been sent.

2. Enterprise digital rights management (DRM) solutions prevent documents from being accessed by unauthorized parties and lets users embed security policies within the documents, but it is often impractical since it requires all parties to install and manage the same software.

3. Traditional virtual data rooms provide businesses with a secure environment to share and collaborate and are delivered via software-as-a-service (SaaS), which makes adoption extremely easy. However, many of these offerings cannot prevent recipients from forwarding or printing documents without permission.

4. DLP systems prevent certain documents from going out, but once documents are out, all control is relinquished.

A more comprehensive solution that controls and tracks documents enables users to easily send documents through the system, while both encrypting them in transit and controlling them throughout their lifecycle. With such a solution, administrators can define a policy for each document that will restrict recipients from printing, copying or forwarding the material and also allows them to revoke access at any time.