Enterprise Data Protection – A Market Update from Bloor Research
In March 2009 Bloor Research released a Market Update on the
subject of Enterprise data Protection. But what is Enterprise Data Protection
and why should you bother?
Turmoil in international financial markets, coupled with
multiple significant data leak events in both the public and private sectors
has placed enormous pressure on businesses to more actively manage their
risk.
This economic downturn will see significantly more data loss
incidents than ever before due to the number of white collar knowledge workers
– with access to IT systems – being made redundant or feeling aggrieved due to
additional work pressures, bonus cuts or other stresses. Disgruntled employees
are less likely to take care of corporate assets such as data and in many
instances will actively seek to remove data that they consider to be useful
such as customer lists and emails.
The need for Enterprise Data Protection is now more pressing
than ever before.
Enterprise Data Protection is an umbrella term used to
describe the coming together of data leak prevention technologies (often
referred to as data loss prevention) with data encryption technologies. The
reason for the coming together of two different security technologies is the
natural synergy they share. By stopping data leaks in the first instance an
organisation will achieve a high level of protection, but accepting that no
organisation can ever prevent all data from leaking it makes sense to secure
sensitive data further using encryption.
This combined approach delivers a comprehensive, robust and
now a practical response to the data loss problem.
In practice the Enterprise Data Protection domain has been
proven as a desirable objective for vendors as they seek partnerships and
acquisitions to compliment their own solutions in this area. New and emerging Digital Rights Management
products continue to cross over into what was considered the data loss
prevention market place at the same time
as data encryption vendors look at ways of complimenting their products.
End user organisations need to be reviewing their data loss
and encryption strategies as a matter of urgency to prevent expensive and
reputation damaging incidents. This needs to be approached from a strategic
viewpoint so that best use is made of budgets, personnel and systems.
With current economic stresses placing additional pressures
on IT budgets it is important for the business to understand the increased risk
of significant data loss, especially with growing staff layoffs. Bloor Research
believes that Enterprise Data Protection
should be a pressing objective for all organisations concerned about their
ongoing stability and risk profile.
The pressure on most businesses is very high as they contend
with financial uncertainty, supply chain disruption and delayed or aborted
buying decisions. Part of ongoing risk management must incorporate IT security
and in particular the mitigation of data losses due to a disrupted employee
base.
Organisations still need to ensure that data does not leak
from their systems and if it does it remains securely encrypted. Vendor
solutions available today should be assessed, and partnerships created with the
best vendor able to supply an Enterprise Data Protection product set in a
realistic time frame that suits your particular organisation.
By thinking strategically and preventing data loss
organisations will be better placed to ride out the current recession.
The Market Update is available free of charge at BloorAnswers.com and features a large number of vendors including:
- Adobe
- CA (Orchestria)
- Websense
- McAfee
- Credant Technologies
- CheckPoint (Pointsec)
- BeCrypt
- PGP
- Microsoft
- RSA
- Vericept
- Cisco
- Lumension Security
- TrendMicro
- GTB Technologies
- Symantec
- Sophos (Utimaco)
- Tumbleweed Communications
- Secude
- Voltage Security
- Safend
- DESLock
- FrontRange Solutions