Protecting data from 'enemies' within

Enterprise rights management software, which controls access to any information being floated within an organisation, is set to see widespread use.

Rakesh Aggarwal is incensed. He works in a reputed blue-chip company and was working on a proposal for a big client. However, before pitching it to the client he sent the mail to a colleague to ask for a second opinion.

The colleague made a few changes and approached the client directly and got the proposal. Aggarwal did all the work, but his colleague took the credit.

Aggarwal had no way of proving otherwise. However, had his company invested in an enterprise digital rights management (EDRM) software, the story would have been different. Simply put, EDRM or enterprise rights management (ERM) software controls the accessibility of any information being floated within the organisation.

It allows an organisation to control unauthorised duplication of work. It also allows a check on who gets access to information, to what extent, and transmits the data in an encrypted format.

Technologies like the public key infrastructure (PKI) "" which encrypts the data when being exchanged "" helps in controlling who accesses the document or information. But once the key is applied, the control is no longer effective.

ERM takes into account all these factors and is not restricted to the computer or the email the information sits on. For instance, if a word document is sent to a team for research with read-only command, then any other command such as print, email or forward will not work.

ERM software is expected to grow by 800 per cent in the coming years, says a Jupiter Research study. From $36 million in 2003, it is expected to reach to $274 million by 2008. IDC states the market size is worth $2 billion by 2010 with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 90 per cent.

Sanjeev Mathur, senior business analyst, Tech Mahindra says: "The biggest driver of this market is compliance. With organisations going the digital way, almost all the data are available to the employees. This, in turn, increases the chances of it getting misused."

Tech Mahindra has developed a software "" digital asset protection platform "" that allows organisations to control the flow of information intelligently. The company will formally launch the product over the next two-months time.

"When it comes to security most of the companies onlythink about external attacks. Hence, they are prepared with the best firewalls, content filtering mechanism, filtering and others. But no one takes into account the threat that comes from its own employees. With USB sticks (pen drives) getting smaller and Internet access growing, data can be easily misused. We are doing a proof-of-concept for a Noida-based BPO for 6-7 critical applications," he adds.

Tech Mahindra, however, is not the only one providing digital rights management software. Players like Microsoft, EMC, Oracle and Adobe too have their own solutions. Tech Mahindra's solution, though, is platform independent.

Though Microsoft does have a ERM solution it is applicable only to Microsoft products like Word, Excel, or their Servers. Similarly, though Adobe has a successful ERM system, it restricts its usage to its own file formats.

Sandeep Mehrotra, country sales manager, Adobe India, says: "With the data getting digitised companies are getting sensitive to this due to confidentiality issues. Though it is difficult to tell the uptake of this among the Indian corporates, there is certainly an awareness with regards to such solutions." Though the market is still small, competitive security concerns among organisations is spurring its acceptance.