News
Microsoft and EMC’s RSA Security Division Expand Their Strategic Alliance
December 2008 by Marc Jacob
Building on a long-standing, multi-faceted alliance, EMC and Microsoft Corp.
announced they have expanded their technology partnership to help companies better protect
sensitive information and share it in a more secure manner. The companies will be working
together with a built-in "systems" approach that helps protect information throughout the
infrastructure based on content, context and identity.
The partnership will take advantage of resources and technology from Microsoft and RSA,
The Security Division of EMC. Microsoft will build the RSA® Data Loss Prevention (DLP)
classification technology into the Microsoft platform and future information protection
products. The resulting collaboration is designed to enable organizations to centrally define
information security policy, automatically identify and classify sensitive data virtually
anywhere in the infrastructure, and use a range of controls to protect data at the endpoints,
network, and data center. Additionally, in the near term RSA’s DLP Suite 6.5 will be
engineered to integrate tightly with Microsoft Active Directory Rights Management Services
(RMS) within Windows Server 2008.
Enterprises face growing risks of data leaks and an increase in compliance and corporate
governance requirements. Companies recognize the importance of allowing employees,
partners, customers and vendors to use business information within and across company
boundaries. But this creates security challenges, as information moves across the
infrastructure and is transformed throughout its lifecycle. Current information protection
solutions are complex and costly. They require separate tools and lack visibility into the
sensitivity of the data, the context of identity and centralized policy management.
"Companies continue to struggle to protect sensitive data across the enterprise," said
Christopher Young, senior vice president of products at RSA, The Security Division of EMC.
"Point solutions require that multiple policies and technologies be stitched together and
independently managed, which is costly and complex. By building technology such as RSA
DLP classification into the infrastructure, Microsoft and RSA are providing a new approach
that balances the need to help ensure protection with accessibility."
RSA and Microsoft’s new approach helps address customer needs through an end-to-end
solution with fewer point tools to buy, deploy and manage. By building DLP classification
technology into Microsoft products, the infrastructure becomes content-aware. The solution is
designed to allow customers to centrally manage and apply their information security policies,
based on user identity, to wherever information lives or is used.
Microsoft is an RSA DLP Suite customer, using the solution to enhance the security of data
about payment, customers and intellectual property in thousands of its own file shares and
Microsoft Office SharePoint sites. The company chose to work with EMC’s RSA Security
division based on the accuracy and scalability of the RSA DLP classification technology, and
the wide array of its out-of-the-box policies.
The first deliverable from the expanded partnership is a tight integration between RSA’s DLP
Suite and Microsoft rights management technology. Scheduled to ship later this month,
version 6.5 of RSA’s DLP Suite will include support for Microsoft Active Directory RMS,
part of Windows Server 2008. The integration will allow customers to automatically apply
RMS-based information access and usage policies, based on the sensitivity of information. In
addition, the RSA solution’s integration with Active Directory will help enable customers to
efficiently implement data loss prevention controls tied to employee identity or group
membership.
EMC offers a complete range of information security strategy, design and implementation
services to help customers protect critical information, manage risk and integrate these
solutions into their environments.
