Clearswift Launches World’s First Adaptive Redaction Functionality

Protects against critical or sensitive data loss, reduces risk of internal and external human error, secures business reputation and ensures compliance

Posted on September 23, 2013

Theale, UK 23rd September 2013 – Clearswift, the global cyber-security company, is today launching the latest addition to its award-winning Secure Web Gateway and Secure Email Gateway solutions – Adaptive Redaction functionality. The Secure Email Gateway uses Adaptive Redaction to prevent sensitive data leaking in or out of your company via emails or attachments; the SECURE Web Gateway employs Adaptive Redaction technology to automatically identify and remove sensitive data as it passes in and out of a company network without the requirement for human intervention.

According to Clearswift’s latest research, 83% of organisations had experienced some form of data security incident in the last year. Data Loss Prevention (DLP) controls are needed to ensure employees are using data responsibly. Data loss not only damages reputation, it can also breach a number of compliance regulations at considerable cost to businesses; where greater collaboration and the use of hosted services mean that controlling data transfer is an increasing challenge.

Frank Dickson, Industry Principal Network Security, Frost & Sullivan comments: “The challenges that organisations face today with both the malicious and unintended transfer of personal information and sensitive corporate data has been well publicized. The proliferation of e-mail, social media and other communication channels has exacerbated the challenges as they provide individuals with exponentially increased opportunities to share and communicate. The advancement that Clearswift have provided in managing protected information with their automated Adaptive Redaction capability, within their gateway technologies, is a clever and effective data loss prevention technique to facilitate continuous collaboration while mitigating the effect of potential false positives that inhibit business communication.“

Dr. Guy Bunker comments: “DLP is a frontline issue today for businesses of all sizes. With our Adaptive Redaction capability we have strengthened and enhanced our integrated DLP functionality across our web and email gateways. This gives a robust, compliant, automated and dynamic solution for enterprises, enabling them to collaborate continuously without having to work around the stop and block approach that traditional DLP solutions create.”

Bunker continues: ”A business needs to be realistic when it comes to its approach to IT security and prepare for the inevitable - human error. Adaptive Redaction supports a comprehensive Information Governance strategy for understanding and managing information across multiple platforms. It enables the automatic encryption of sensitive information and reduces the risk of accidental leaks via manual input, making it simpler for businesses to ensure that their data is secure, both from an inbound and outbound perspective.”

Adaptive Redaction extends traditional DLP policies by allowing the automatic removal of sensitive and confidential information from both email and web based communication. It scans content, automatically identifying and removing both the ‘visible’ and ‘invisible data’ which breaks policy and then delivers it to the intended recipient without ‘stopping and blocking’. The changes that are made depend on the policy, which in turn depends on the individuals who are sending or receiving the information - making it an ‘adaptive’ process.

Clearswift’s Adaptive Redaction functionality extends the same pattern analysis as is used in its DLP functionality. Clearswift's content inspection engine ensures that all information that enters and leaves an organisation electronically, via email or the web - is subject to deep content analysis. Within the SECURE Gateways the Adaptive Redaction options include:

  • Data redaction - Automatically removes sensitive information from web pages, emails and documents and replaces sensitive data such as credit card numbers with ‘*’ symbols, preventing recovery by unauthorised parties and ensuring business compliance. It also enables businesses to share information without breaking legislative requirements (e.g. PCI DSS).
  • Document sanitization - Automatically detects and removes ‘invisible’ sensitive information from documents. For example, meta-data embedded in documents, or revision history information. This helps ensure compliance for public sector bodies to the ICO ‘hidden’ information regulation.
  • Structural sanitization - Removes active content from files and web pages automatically. Automatic identification and removal of active content improves defenses against malware infiltrating a network.

Adaptive Redaction can be applied to multiple formats, including Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint), PDF and HTML files.

About Clearswift

Clearswift’s content-aware, policy based solutions enables defense, government, healthcare and financial services organizations across the globe to manage and maintain no-compromise data, email, cloud and web security.

US
MRB Public Relations
+1 732 758 1100
[email protected]

EMEA 
C8 Consulting
+44 118 334 0220
[email protected]

Recent News
January 12, 2023

In this IT Security Wire article, cybersecurity experts Eric George and Tom Gorup share their 2023 cybersecurity predictions.

September 2, 2022

MINNEAPOLIS (September 1, 2022)—Fortra announced today the acquisition of Outflank, a well-regarded IT security leader with de

July 21, 2022

Fortra employee, Ciaran Rafferty shares his thoughts on everything from cybersecurity trends to the future of email security in this interview with Intelligent CIO. 

April 12, 2022

MINNEAPOLIS —April 8, 2022—Fortra announced today the acquisition of Terranova Security, a leader in global phishing simulation and security awareness t

March 9, 2022

Managed detection and response (MDR) forms new cornerstone of Fortra's cybersecurity portfolio