Today the loss of confidential information in a company can cause significant undesirable consequences, including financial, legal, and reputation damage. The range of channels through which confidential data can leak out of company is rather wide: e-mail, all types of Internet services (Web, IM, etc.), removable devices, CDs/DVDs, printing, unauthorized physical access to the equipment, and mediums such as mobile devices. At the same time, the users that have access to this type of information can be the ones who cause a leakage, not only intentionally but also unintentionally. Hence the problem of confidential data leakage prevention can be solved by organizing a complex control over the leakage channels and devices of data communications, as well as by setting policies, according to which only an authorized user can gain access to information that can leave the company.

There are a number of requirements for the usage of these protection systems that derive from the network infrastructure of organization as well as from the activities of the business. Despite the risk of confidential information leakages and their consequences, companies in general cannot completely forbid the use of removable devices and information transfer channels. Confidential data is usually accessed by several users, often simultaneously. At the same time, the volume and methods of data storage (hard disk, flash devices, etc.) can vary from user to user. The information security policies in a company are set centrally, taking into consideration different groups of authorities and the functional responsibilities of users. Different companies can use different methods to authorize users (passwords, tokens, a combination, etc.). Corporations are extremely sensitive to the overhead expenses connected with the loss of employee work-time caused by slow and clunky protection systems. The greatest attention is paid to the reliability of software tools, their capacity to recover after failures, and the simplicity of implementation and support.

InfoWatch Traffic Monitor allows for effective centralized control over mail and Web traffic, the process of copying data to removable devices, as well as printing. These combined provide decent control over data usage within the network. However, there are a number of cases when even this is not enough. One such example is the unauthorized copying of company information by mobile PC or removable device. In these cases the most effective way to prevent information from being leaked is to protect it through storage and usage. The optimal solution for this is to encrypt the information. This protection has to be transparent for the user and independent of information type. It should also use stable algorithms for encryption and protect the maximum number of object types. This problem can be solved by using InfoWatch CryptoStorage.