Centennial Boosts Internal Security
Centennial Boosts Internal Security
April 21st, 2006: Centennial Software has updated its internal security solution DeviceWall, promising increased security against information leaks as well as new auditing capabilities to track culprits.
Internal security is a growing problem for modern organisations. The perimeter has been stitched up for years thanks to increasingly robust firewalls and antivirus, however, thanks to the spread of portable flash memory devices the risk of sensitive data going walkabout with a staff member is increasing rapidly.
Centennial’s DeviceWall uniquely protects information leaks inside an organisation by controlling the use of data storage peripherals such as USB keys, cameras, MP3 players, PDA’s and more.
These portable devices are presenting an increasingly large risk to intellectual property due to their ability to covertly smuggle data off company computers and servers.
Centennial released DeviceWall in 2005, helping plug internal security holes by restricting or blocking the kinds of devices that can be used on a network or the ports that transmit the data.
Centennial have now updated DeviceWall to include a comprehensive data auditing system to monitor not only who is copying data to what device, but also what data is being copied.
Gartner’s 2004 report "How to tackle the threat from portable storage devices" says that companies should consider restricting or completely outlawing the use of portable storage devices by any employee or contractors who has direct access to the network.
An organisation doesn’t always want to take an overly restrictive policy however. “They take the view that if an incident does occur they want to have facilities in place to monitor and carry out the investigation,” says Howard Waterson, Centennial’s Regional Manager for APAC. “They don’t want to be restricted for various business reasons.”
“Where device wall has got to now, is where in its first incarnation it could have a policy to simply monitor and then control these devices, we now have a comprehensive auditing facility in it as well. It will propagate through the whole organisation and produce a picture on the main console showing all the activity that is going on with these devices.
“This way they can see what kind of risks they may be exposed to, and decide whether they want to implement a policy, or if they simply want to monitor it in auditing mode.”
Howard says that while businesses are acutely aware of the need for external security such as firewalls and antivirus, the inside perimeter is still being neglected.
“In the old days people used to go through bins pulling out old carbon slips from credit card sales. These problems were thought to have be resolved, however, a lot of data is stored on temporary devices where there are too many ways to simply remove this data.
“There is risk everywhere.”
DeviceWall 4.0 is available now for around $25 a seat based on a 1000 seat purchase.
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