Stop the leak: Rights management survey confirms route to properly protecting content
By Manufacturing Business Technology Staff -- Manufacturing Business Technology, 9/18/2008 3:20:00 PM
Sarbanes-Oxley and HIPAA compliance are driving enterprise rights management (ERM) solutions adoption, according to security solutions supplier GigaTrust, which offers a new research report documenting the explosive growth of ERM.
The GigaTrust survey, commissioned in part by GigaTrust and conducted by the Gilbane Group with the assistance of the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth, highlights how ERM is being viewed not only as a benefit to an organization, but also as a business opportunity. Barriers to implementation are eroding as executives are becoming more familiar with the benefits of the technology.
“The survey results indicate ERM is on a strong path of steady growth,” says Bill Rosenblatt, a senior analyst with Gilbane Group and the report’s lead author. “As IT managers and organizations become more comfortable with the uses, applications, and advantages of the technology, ERM will play a bigger part in corporate security infrastructure.”
Of respondents who have implemented ERM in their organizations, half said the implementation was across the whole enterprise. The most often-cited reason for ERM implementation—by 25 percent of respondents—was to protect confidential information from leaking outside of the enterprise. Complying with industry regulations or standards was cited as a significant reason for adoption of ERM, with Sarbanes-Oxley (24 percent) and the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act (18 percent) cited as the two primary compliance vehicles
Additional key findings from the ERM report include:
1. Along with regulatory compliance, respondents cited three types of business processes involving confidential information that were the most prevalent for ERM implementations: client/customer communications, financial processes, and medical patient care.
2. Large proportions of respondents’ organizations are implementing (or will implement) ERM integrated with content management systems or some variant of content management technology, such as knowledge management or collaboration.
3. For those that have not implemented yet, only 12 percent claimed there was insufficient business justification or executive sponsorship.
As ERM progresses into a must-have security approach, GigaTrust is building its email and content security software products to adhere to the complex regulatory compliance and corporate governance requirements that many organizations face. GigaTrust’s tools provide support for organizations of any size, securing content in multiple file formats like PDF and across all means of content/document distribution, such as Web portals like Microsoft’s SharePoint and mobile devices like BlackBerry.
Read the full report.
