One-Click Configuration Simplifies Compliance with Global Regulatory Standards

Library of more than 200 predefined, multi-country rules proactively protect personal, financial and healthcare data

29 July 2013 – WatchGuard® Technologies has introduced a Data Loss Prevention (DLP) solution for its Unified Threat Management (UTM) platform - the WatchGuard XTM product series - that simplifies compliance with leading regulatory standards worldwide. Users can select from a pre-configured library of more than 200 rules that monitor multiple file types, standards and sensitive data. This includes National Insurance numbers and other Personally Identifiable Information (PII), and can enable complex checks for Data Protection Act and PCI compliance with a single click. This allows businesses to instantly protect data and prevent costly regulatory violations that according to Ponemon’s 2013 Cost of Data Breach Study: UK, can top £2.04 million per breach.

“Since 2005, more than 600 million records have been breached, and the stakes continue to rise as companies struggle to protect data in the face of increasingly complicated regulatory requirements and numerous file types,” said Roger Klorese, director of product management at WatchGuard. “With our DLP’s broad range of pre-configured rule sets, we instantly take the risk of misconfiguration out of the equation for our customers. And more importantly, because we protect against losing such a broad range of data types, we help address one of the key security concerns among customers – accidental loss from well-intentioned employees.”

In the WatchGuard 2013 Security Professional survey, 63 percent of companies reported still not having a Data Loss Prevention solution in place, despite the risk of being penalised millions of pounds for losing sensitive data.

“In our global study of industry network professionals, we also found that of those that don’t have a DLP system in place, 36 percent were put off by the cost of DLP solutions,” Klorese said. “The positive news for IT professionals is that by choosing a DLP solution that’s integrated with UTM, companies can simplify their data protection, while reducing their total cost of ownership for network security by nearly half, according to a Gartner Total Cost of Ownership for UTM report. Plus, a recent Miercom test found that WatchGuard’s UTM platform is 3.5 times faster than similarly priced competing products, so customers can be confident that if they add DLP to their UTM solution set, network performance will not be impacted.”

WatchGuard DLP will be available for all WatchGuard XTM appliances (except for XTM 21, 22 and 23). More detailed information can be found on the WatchGuard Data Loss Prevention product page or on the company’s blog.

 “The WatchGuard XTM strategy allows small and mid-size companies to have the same “best of breed” security that the largest enterprises enjoy, while still having a single, reasonably priced, easy to manage security solution,” said Alex Thurber, vice president of sales for the Americas and EMEA regions. “Our new DLP offering just continues that business model and shows the ongoing flexibility and expandability of our system.”

Reported data breach statistics from Privacyrights.org (http://www.privacyrights.org/data-breach)