New Software Censors Work Communication
Besides the obvious breaches in personal information we all hear about - lost laptops, stolen hard drives, lost CDs - there is the less obvious. An example would be accidental or intentional sending of sensitive information, such as Social Security numbers, via email. Or even, as has happened fairly recently, sending denigrating comments via email, which then eventually come back to haunt the sender.
For example, one communications-control
vendor, Orchestria Corp., says its software could have prevented the
CEO of Whole Foods Market Inc. from posting the rival-denigrating
comments on Internet message boards that he later came to regret.
How so? Because Orchestria’s software can be set to notice when certain keywords — a competitor’s name, for example — are entered in documents or Web forms. The software can be set to block such actions or simply warn users that they’re breaking company policy.
According to the article, rule-breaking is rare, and usually unintentional. After all, as we well know, it would be far easier, if you wanted to get sensitive information out, to simply plug in a USB flash drive, and copy it there. Or even, if you really need to email it, use an encrypted ZIP file to store the information.
