The companies also announced Safend's inclusion in the growing PortAuthority DATASEC Alliance, which aims to foster interoperability between complementary technologies to jointly deliver the most comprehensive data protection and compliance solutions.
 
Despite heightened awareness, serious data breaches continue to occur in corporations due to poor endpoint control, resulting in the loss of private customer data and other confidential information. Whether unintentional, intentional or malicious in nature, the ramifications of these incidents are proving significant.

Until today, endpoint security solutions lacked the functionality to identify sensitive content resting on desktops and laptops, the companies say. Current solutions also lack the ability to protect confidential data from unauthorised distribution, they add. This partnership aims to create a comprehensive endpoint ILP solution.
 
"Today's endpoint security products provide limited protection against confidential data leakage because they are not content aware, and can be bypassed by simple manoeuvres, such as changing the file name or file type," says Brian Burke, research manager of security products at IDC. "The joint solution brought to the market today by PortAuthority and Safend serves a critical need for organisations that was previously unmet. Now, organisations can protect their information on endpoints from unauthorised distribution or duplication, based on actual file contents according to their predefined policies."
 
As a result of this joint announcement between PortAuthority Technologies and Safend, Magix Integration and New Generation Solutions (respectively, the Safend and PortAuthority Technologies distributors in SA) will now be able to provide local businesses with a solution to prevent the unauthorised dissemination of sensitive data over virtually all network and endpoint communication channels.
 
PortAuthority's PreciseIDTM technology aims to provide a solution to monitor and prevent information leaks of internal and external network channels, including MS-Exchange, network printing, SMTP/ESMTP, HTTP, HTTPS, FTP and IM.

Based on Digital MembraneTM technology, Safend Protector is designed to control data access from the physical and wireless ports of all enterprise endpoints, including USB, FireWire, WiFi, Bluetooth, Infrared (IrDA), and CD/DVDs as well as portable media players and U3 drives.