McAfee Unveils New Data-Loss Prevention Suite at RSA

Security vendor McAfee introduced an agent and server package at RSA this week designed to protect confidential and sensitive data from theft, loss, exposure and other misuse. McAfee says its Data Loss Prevention (DLP) Host takes a holistic approach to securing information, giving enterprises complete administrative control over and visibility into the way data is handled as it travels from end stations to other destinations over e-mail and instant messaging systems and to printed documents, USB drives, CD-ROMs and other devices.

Describing the DLP Host as a key part of its security risk-management portfolio, McAfee says the software will help organizations eliminate the costly data losses that have plagued so many companies and government agencies in recent years.

McAfee's security research team says that in spite of stepped up corporate efforts to better control the flow of sensitive information, losses through e-mail, print, and mobile devices remain a big problem for businesses. In fact, since 2005 more than 100 million U.S. residents' records have been compromised by security breaches, according to the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse.

McAfee DLP Host relies on a combination of agent software and a logging and management server to implement, monitor and enforce organizational data policies to end points. The combo tracks activity across of corporate-issued devices. When data-use policies are violated, McAFee DLP Host steps in to block an unauthorized transfer or use of information. The vendor says the technology understands both content and context so it can secure data even in cases where it is copied, pasted, compressed, encrypted or otherwise manipulated.Israel-based Partner Communications was attracted to DLP Host because the mobile service provider needed a comprehensive solution to defend critical corporate data assets that could be breached from many different avenues.

After looking into other products, Partner Communications judged McAfee's host-based technology as superior to alternatives, such as gateway-only solutions that don't safeguard data from client-based leaks when end users are working offline or when information is transferred against policy to a removable storage device, says Micky Belhassen, information security manager at Partner Communications.