Appliance Data Protection: The Data Leakage Solution

The Internet has revolutionized the work place dynamics. But to know exactly how it has, lets discuss the topic with the seriousness it requires, using facts to justify our beliefs.

It has become a kind of compulsion in an organization to regularly check and control the use of Internet by its employees. This is mainly because of the threat of data leakage. A recent survey shows that 40 percent usage of the Internet is not for business or work purposes. This also means that normally employers are not concerned about what their employees are up to on the Internet.

Studies have also found that in most of the computers, spyware programs are installed. This is harmful as lots of audio/video clips and games are downloaded almost everyday. This study shows that organizations should give priority to control the employees access to the Internet because of its harmful effects.

All this calls for an appropriate filter. Most employers are confused whether to choose appliance data protection or a software filter. Both appliance data protection and software filter almost serve the same purpose and functions in a similar manner. Some of their common features are to control access to site, include certain policies which are acceptable to corporates and submit reports on unethical behavior or keeping a watch on Internet activities.

But besides these common features, there are some points from a recent study which indicates that appliance data protection works better than a software filter.

Advantages of appliance data protection

Considering your organization's security and reliability issues, some of the advantages of appliance data protection over software based filter include:

  • They ensure more security and stability.
  • They offer more accuracy and are more reliable.
  • Easy to maintain.
  • Affordable cost.

How appliance data protection works

Normally, a software based filter shares the resources with your computer and has to integrate with the operating system of your computer. Because of this sharing and integration, the performance is affected. This means that there is less stability and security coupled with more load on your computer.

Another interesting feature of a dedicated appliance filter is that it maintains a list of the users who are allowed to access the system and a list of those who are not allowed. Whenever a user tries to access the system, it compares its identity to the maintained list and if the identity does not match the list of members who are allowed to access, a message is immediately sent to the requester without using any bandwidth.

The appliance filters are easy to maintain as compared to software based filter. The appliance filter maintains a database in the device itself with the facility of automatic update. In comparison, a software filter demands regular updates.

The world is becoming smaller, data leakage is becoming bigger. With these facts, you now realize the importance of getting an appliance filter at the earliest convenience for appliance data protection.