Have you ever sent a confidential e-mail to one or more people only to find out that the e-mail was sent to someone that should not be on the distribution list? One small mistake like this can have a devastating impact on your business! Just ask Rocky Mountain Bank what it will cost them, because there was no way for them to disable an Excel spreadsheet and other documents that were sent out in error.
In August, a customer of Rocky Mountain asked a bank employee to send specific loan statements to a representative of the customer. The employee, however, inadvertently sent the e-mail to the wrong Gmail address. Additionally, the employee had attached a sensitive file to the e-mail that should not have been sent out at all. The attachment contained confidential information on 1,325 individual and business customers that included their names, addresses, tax identification or Social Security numbers and loan information.
Now imagine if the Bank had a way to “kill” the attachments after they had been sent. Persistent file-level security allows organizations to manage sensitive information after it has left the premises – either intentionally or unintentionally. Embedded security can be applied to all or to specific documents based on Corporate Data Governance policies. The policy can control who can open the file, what editing features are available, the time frame within which the file can be opened and the ability to revoke all access rights if the file was sent out in error!
So the bottom line is…do not let unprotected corporate data become a liability!
photo credit Pirillo & Fitz
