DataMotion has introduced a new version of its SecureMail Gateway, an intelligent monitoring solution that uses policy-based encryption and Exact Matching functionality to prevent data leakage and protect sensitive information in email messages and file attachments. The automated solution takes email security and compliance out of the hands of employees to minimize human error, ensure strict policy enforcement company-wide, and make it easier for organizations to protect information in transit and adhere to privacy regulations.
More and more companies are falling under the purview of regulations such as GLBA, HIPAA, HITECH, and PCI, and even if a company is not in a regulated industry, there is often a function - such as management of 401K policies by an HR department - that is subject to privacy mandates, Bob Janacek, co-founder and CTO of DataMotion, tells 5 Minute Briefing. In situations where a person does not realize that there is sensitive data in their email or attachment, or accidentally hits send instead of send secure, this provides the necessary protection and sends it securely on their behalf, Janacek explains.
According to DataMotion, its recent survey found that 34.5% of respondents do not have the ability to encrypt email, and 28.9% do not monitor the content of outbound email and file attachments for compliance purposes. Regardless of the reason, companies are cutting corners even as data breaches continue to make headlines and regulatory agencies hand out millions of dollars in fines for privacy and security violations.
DataMotion’s SecureMail Gateway scans all outbound email and attachments for sensitive content as defined by corporate policies and automatically encrypts all messages that require secure delivery. Adding an extra layer of intelligence to the filtering process, the Gateway uses new Exact Matching functionality in addition to traditional pattern matching to better identify and secure email containing sensitive data. Exact Matching compares target email messages against an actual set of dynamically updated data specific to an organization, such as customer account numbers.
The specificity of Exact Matching greatly reduces false positives, which is important because if there are too many false alarms, users will get complaints and then the IT staff eventually disables the product, says Janacek. “It looks good in a marketing brochure to say that there is pattern matching to scan for Social Security numbers and credit card numbers but if that pattern matching is triggered when it is not supposed to, then the products tend not to be implemented or are even completely disabled,” he explains. “With Exact Matching, the company can take their exact list of policy numbers or specific ID numbers related to customers, partners, or clients and our SecureMail Gateway can use that. The Exact Matching ensures that the technology actually gets used and is not sitting on a shelf like a lot of well-meaning applications that don’t fully implement the concept correctly.”
Additional features of DataMotion’s SecureMail Gateway include real-time updates with Exact Matching filters automatically refreshed with changes to company data contained in external files, ensuring email and attachments are always scanned against the most current information. The Gateway also includes three types of outbound mail filtering, including custom exact data matching rules, industry-specific lexicon rules and regular expression rules. In addition, senders may be notified if their messages are routed for secure delivery, helping to educate employees on secure email best practices and reinforce company policies. In total, more than 300 different file attachment types can be scanned for sensitive content, and messages are monitored, tracked and reported on at every phase of the process, giving IT better visibility into data delivery. Companies also can provide their customers with the ability to initiate secure inbound messages, demonstrating their commitment to protecting confidential data.
For complete information about DataMotion’s SecureMail Gateway, visit www.datamotion.com/Products/SecureMailGateway.aspx.