Walking Data

Well, I'm back from vacation to England. Very cool, but let's get back to what this blog is about: Security.

So you got data leaving the business without permission?  We all love to think the firewalls are being penterated by the 16-year old in the black Metallica "Ride the Lightning" concert shirt....but it's not. Joe in Accounting or Mary in R&D are the ones putting you at risk. Call it what you want: data leakage, podslurping, etc. They all lead to breaches of customer data and/or your intellectual property (aka "trade secrets"). Think it's not a serious problem? Ask DuPont, where a leak of company secrets by a former employee is going to cost them about $400 Million. Of course, if you're organization can take the hit, stop reading now. If you can't (or would like to look really good on your annual performance evaluation) check out this new tool:

It's called the Data Encryption Toolkit for Mobile PCs and it really is coolness. It consists of 4 parts, 2 of which you can get now (the other 2 will come out in a few months). They are:

Executive Overview

The Executive Overview provides customers with a high-level overview of the Data Encryption Toolkit for Mobile PCs to help them understand the business and regulatory risks of losing data on mobile PCs, and how they can use the guidance in this Solution Accelerator to mitigate these risks.

Security Analysis

The Security Analysis discusses in depth a number of unique risks associated with data on mobile PCs, and analyzes how Microsoft's key encryption technologies, EFS and BitLocker, can help customers mitigate those risks. The Security Analysis now available on TechNet and the Microsoft Download Center.

..the other pieces that will be forthcoming are the:

Planning and Implementation Guide

The Planning and Implementation Guide describes how to plan for, configure, deploy, and operate EFS and BitLocker in a customer’s organization. A Beta version of the Planning and Implementation Guide is currently available.

EFS Assistant

The EFS Assistant lets customers centrally control EFS settings on all their mobile PCs (and many desktop PCs, too). The EFS Assistant will help customers find all the files on their mobile PCs that need to be encrypted, regardless of where users save them. And the EFS Assistant operates transparently to end users, eliminating training issues or other impacts. A Beta version of the EFS Assistant is currently available.

.....so start reading and stop watching the firewall for alarms. It's the guy in Marketing you need to be watching.