Security Tip #1 – Secure Your Employees’ Mobile Phones and Devices
Your employees SmartPhones or mobile devices help them to be more productive, but they also pose a security risk. Once they are set up with an email account, a Wi-Fi network, or used to store important data, they become vulnerable in case of loss or theft.
System administrators in organizations must make sure that employees use all the security features of the mobile operating system (OS) of their company phone or device. The three main features are: PIN or password protection, data encryption, and remote wiping of all data.
The current iPhone 4 and BlackBerry 5 provide entire device encryption.
Security Tip#2 – Encrypt Your Employees’ Laptops and Flash Drives
Every employee, regardless of their job or the sort of data they store on their laptops, should encrypt them. This prevents that once lost or stolen, the employee’s documents, system files, passwords and Internet history can be accessed.
Almost all employees use Flash drives for storing and transferring data. Since most corporate data is sensitive, the Flash drive must be encrypted to prevent others having access to the stored information.
Security Tip #3 – Properly Secure and Use Wi-Fi Networks
Many organizations use Wi-Wi networks as do remote workers. Especially employees working from home and small offices need to make sure that their wireless router is WPA or WPA2 encrypted.
System administrators should pay attention that the WPA or WPA2 encryption should always be in the Enterprise mode, and not in the simple Personal (PSK) mode. The Enterprise mode allows for setting up unique usernames and passwords for employees to login.
Mobile employees often need to access a public Wi-Fi Hotspots, mainly for checking email. For email clients like Outlook, it is advised to use SSL encryption to the mail server.
Security Tip #4 – Backup Your Organization’s PST Files and Folders
Enterprises want 2011 to be a year without data loss. But a drive or computer can die, be stolen or lost, or destroyed in a fire. Data can be stolen, lost or destroyed. To prevent loss of valuable information, it should be backed up.
Most corporate data are Outlook data files stored in Outlook folders. These PST files and folders need to be backed up, including those that are connected to hosted email servers over POP3 connection. System administrators opt for a backup solution that runs transparently without any user intervention. They save significant time if backup solution can be centrally deployed and configured. They also need easy access to detailed backup reports.
EdgeSafe PST2PST Backup is patented state-of-the-art PST database backup for Outlook installations regardless of topology, product and interface variations. EdgeSafe File Backup Agent complements EdgeSafe PST2PST Backup solution to provide the most advanced backup solution for notebooks and desktops in organizations.
System administrators of SME as well as large corporations opt for EdgeSafe PST2PST Backup solution to backup their corporate files and folders incrementally, including PST files on item level.
For more information, please contact DataMills Ltd at: http://www.datamills.com/form/contact-us
When an enterprise makes the decision to migrate to Google Apps, it realizes that the process normally also involves migration of all its PST files. An organization will therefore also be looking for a solution for PST files aggregation from all its distributed workstations (desktops, laptops etc.) to a central storage location before uploading them using GAMME 2.0.
We at DataMills have developed the perfect tool for this: EdgeSafe PST2PST MigratorTM . It automates the collection of scattered enterprise PST files into a central location, so that GAMME will be able to seamlessly and automatically migrate the PST files to Google Apps. The tool will thus save enterprises hundreds if not thousands of man-hours involved in the migration process.
Our solutions are centrally managed using a central control station. For migration to Google Apps, it is therefore ideal for phased migration since it incrementally updates the PST backup.
Furthermore, some enterprises find it difficult to totally abandon control of their email data, inherent to any Cloud solution. For these customers, DataMills provides a solution that enables them to keep a local copy at a central on-premises location to give them peace of mind. This backup copy will seamlessly be synchronized with the Google Apps email (email contacts, calendar, tasks, etc.) data in an efficient incremental manner. This solution is especially useful for organizations that need to comply with various rules and regulations, such as SOX and HIPAA.
For more information about these and other backup solutions, please refer to our product page or contact us directly at sales@datamills.com
This tutorial will show how you can easily protect your Outlook data (PST files and folders) and save your Outlook settings with only a few mouse clicks.
It is now easy to backup Outlook email messages, Contact information, Calender, Journal, Tasks, and Notes with EdgeSafePST2PST.
Want to learn more? Contact us at DataMills www.datamills.com
The current WikiLeaks scandal teaches us an important lesson: if the US government is vulnerable, so is any company.
How was data leaked? The days that diplomatic information was sent by cable (over wires by teletype machines) are gone. Nowadays, U.S. diplomats and government employees are sending “cables” and incident reports as PDF files over secured networks: SIPRNet for classified information and NIPRNet for less sensitive unclassified information. The State Department uses its own network called ClassNet to send classified and sensitive information in PDF format.
However, these PDF files are also stored as searchable PST files on servers. This is done in exactly the same way as enterprises save their PST files when creating a backup of their Outlook folders.
That is the reason why the main suspect in the leak could download the PST files and extract them despite being only a Private First Class (PFC) in the U.S. Army (working as an intelligence analyst in Iraq). His job was to ensure that other intelligence analysts in his group had access to all information that they were entitled to see.
If an authorized government employee needed to know e.g., if a rogue government had acquired a new weapon, the PST files were searched to find information contained within a diplomatic cable. The suspect could easily download a PST file with the cables, unpack them, and SNAP (SIPR/NIPR Access Point) them up or down to a computer that is capable of interacting with a USB or a burnable CD. If he would then erase the server logs, investigators would not be able to track his activities later on. Since analysts in general routinely download and access large files for legitimate reason, such behavior would not be flagged as unusual or suspicious.
It would also have been easy for the main suspect to delete the PST files, thus losing a treasure trove of crucial information with dire consequences.
The lesson to be learned for enterprises is clear: apart from data security, they also need a state-of-the-art backup solution for their PST files. Just imagine what will happen to your enterprise when you lose your precious corporate data stored in your emails. Apart from damage to your business, you could also face regulatory compliance issues (SOX, HIPAA, etc.)
To learn more about a great backup solution for your PST files, visit the DataMills website at www.datamills.com or click here for the product page.
