Watchful Software, a leading provider of data-centric information security solutions, today announced the release of version 7.0 of RightsWATCH, the company's award-winning information security solution. The latest release of RightsWATCH more tightly integrates Data Loss Prevention (DLP) strategies with the discipline of data classification, and also leverages this tightly coupled approach to information protection to enable streamlined, secure collaboration with external users in a Microsoft Azure world.
From an information management and governance perspective, RightsWATCH 7.0 brings new capabilities to enable a more robust DLP strategy in the enterprise. In addition to enforcing a classification level for emails or unstructured files, RightsWATCH can also warn users about, or even block, actions that might be in violation of corporate information security policies. "RightsWATCH 7.0 works in real-time, preventing emails from being sent or files from being saved if specified conditions are triggered. On a broader basis, RightsWATCH makes info security a part of the company culture by warning users if they are sending emails to un-authorized recipients, or when files are being saved to un-authorized repositories," said Rui Melo Biscaia, Director of Product Management at Watchful Software.
To streamline and enable the process of secure collaboration with external users, RightsWATCH now allows companies to share information protected by Microsoft's Azure RMS with authorized third parties in a simple, seamless manner through automatic data classification which ‘understands' what those third parties should/shouldn't be allowed to do with the information. By leveraging the Azure RMS trust fabric, RightsWATCH allows classified emails and files protected by Azure RMS templates to be shared with both internal and external users transparently. This functionality enables enterprises to let corporate policy drive the role-based access control of sensitive information, removing that burden from individual end-users.
"Information protections have to move to a data centric focus. Both operational simplicity and effectiveness can't be achieved with tools and techniques from the last century. Data protections that are integrated at the point of use with the ability to educate and inform users can be particularly potent. Layering data protection capabilities is the most effective means of delivering comprehensive controls for DLP," stated Eric Hanselman, Chief Analyst at 451 Research.
To enable strict compliance throughout complex enterprises, RightsWATCH now delivers the ability to set information security policy rules on a group-level basis. Enterprises can now set up generic policy rules to be applied to the entire population of licensed RightsWATCH users, as well as specific policy rules only applied to users that belong to a specific department, project and/or Active Directory group.
This new version of RightsWATCH also provides easy integration between Splunk® and RightsWATCH's logging database. Splunk® searches, monitors, and analyzes machine-generated big data. Enterprises running Splunk® can correlate events and generate dashboards, alarms and reports, knowing in real time who is doing what, when, and how with classified information. "RightsWATCH operates in enterprise environments and we've made it possible for Splunk®, a leading player in the market, to understand and interpret events from RightsWATCH. Now, companies can take RightsWATCH- generated data and leverage Splunk® to make better, faster security decisions," said Rui Melo Biscaia.
Additional enhancements to RightsWATCH 7.0 include enabling enterprises to add images and icons as a header or footer to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and PDF file types. Also, in releasing 7.0, unclassified files can be automatically classified by RightsWATCH as soon as they are attached to an email on MS Outlook.
RightsWATCH is a state-of-the-art information security solution that ensures sensitive information is identified, classified, marked, and that it can only be used by those authorized. If data is leaked, it is rendered useless to unauthorized parties that may acquire it. RightsWATCH enforces an organization's information security policy seamlessly and dynamically, allowing use of sensitive and confidential data only by those who possess the credentials, thereby protecting data privacy, reducing liability, and ensuring regulatory compliance.
