Laptops, USB devices, and other endpoint devices foster a flexible and more productive work environment, yet also increase a company's exposure to the loss or theft of critical information. Avalere inventories, protects, and controls your company’s laptop, desktop or removable storage device information to mitigate risks of lost or stolen equipment.
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Laptops, USB devices, and other portable media foster a flexible and more productive work environment, yet also increase a company's exposure to the loss or theft of critical information. Laptops and other portable devices are misplaced all the time. For example, over a six month time period, 6,000 laptops were left in 1 2London taxi cabs . In the US, a laptop was lost with medical records for 26,000 veterans ; in a separate 3incident, a laptop was lost with student application information from 1200 students . To complicate the matter, a single USB thumb drive can contain all the information from 10 to 20 laptops! Most companies have strict paper policies in place regarding the proper handling of information. It is the enforcement of these policies that is difficult, if not impossible, to guarantee. Part of the challenge is being aware of and understanding all external regulations while trying to remember policies defined by multiple departments in your own company. The other part of the challenge is that even if employees manage to remember a policy, they will implement it based on what they think it means. Such issues lead to inconsistent and incorrect information handling across the corporation; for example, finding information on a laptop or removable device that should not be stored there. The combination of portable devices with the improper handling of information leaves companies exposed. What happens when a device is lost? When a device is lost, a series of questions must be asked: . Did you backup your information? Yes, but not consistently. . Did you have anything important on the machine? Yes, but I don't know specifics. . Was the information encrypted? What kind of protection do you have? I don't remember. So then what happens? Without Avalere: With Avalere Information Assurance practices in place: There is no confidence of the contents of the device. The IT department simply runs a report for the device-in minutes you Additionally, no one knows if the information was know what was on the laptop/USB device. Risk can quickly be assessed backed up or protected. and the contingency plan, if needed, can be implemented. It is known that the information was backed up and protected.
The company must rely on the user's memory to If the device is recovered, the local audit record can be used to see if and determine what critical information is on the device. how information was handled while the device was missing and if a The user often only remembers the last information breach occurred. they had been working with.
Result: Lose a significant amount of time without Result: Know exactly what your exposure is and feel confident the confirming what was actually lost, thereby exposing information is protected from malicious use. the company to an unknown risk.
1 http://www.networkworld.com/news/2006/080806-pc-with-veterans-data-missing.html 2 http://news.aol.com/crime/story/_a/stolen-laptop-contains-student-data/n20061102200609990004 3 http://cbs3.com/topstories/local_story_307104820.html Avalere Information Assurance Manager
TM TMAvalere Information Assurance Manager (IAM ) provides complete visibility, protection, and control of distributed information, without limiting accessibility or impacting end-user productivity. There are currently two modules within Avalere Information Assurance Manager: The Visibility and Protection Module . Classify: Identify information according to its business use. Before you can control or protect information, you need to know what you have. . Protection: Add an extra layer of protection by encrypting your data at rest and data in flight. . Report: Catalog information and provide audits in order to determine how the information you have is being used. The Automation and Control Module . Control: Configure policies to support compliance initiatives and corporate regulations. . Automation: Enforce policies automatically so employees need not focus on how they are saving or protecting data-they can focus on their jobs and know that Avalere IAM will take care of the rest. . Report: Verify that polic... [download for more]
