English | EN Information Rights Management – What’s Up Doc?
Jun 18, 2015
What’s Up Doc?
Digital globalization, the explosion of mobile technologies, increasingly complex supply chains, the BYOD trend and the tendency for even business people to use consumer caliber file sharing systems mean that the integrity and security of 
corporate documents have never been more at risk. In a recent study, leading analyst organization Ovum discovered that majority of the organizations are relying on inadequate firewalls in a vain attempt to protect their sensitive information throughout its life span. This makes a business vulnerable to regulatory non-compliance and data leakage, with sensitive documents falling into the hands of competitors and costly mistakes being made when multiple versions of the same document are floating in the cyberspace. These are serious issues that will affect the reputation of your business and will challenge your clients’ loyalty to your brand.
This Message Will Self Destruct
Information Rights Management, the artillery of special document protection techniques, goes hand in hand with authentication, authorization, advanced multi-dimensional access control, auditing, encryption, electronic signatures, identity management and digital shredding. To meet the demands of new technologies, IRM has grown and the new generation of systems give you file-level control, auditing competencies and a more flexible and effective document protection strategy. Now, you can ensure that your intended privacy levels are integral to the document or file, the rights stay with the original ownership and your assets are properly secured within your corporate environment, in transit and beyond.
Today’s Secret Word Is…
Microsoft’s IRM solution is one of these super breeds and works alongside the easy-to-use interface of Office 365 Message Encryption for a comprehensive, simple-to-configure, user-friendly solution to all the potential challenges you face when your documents pass out of your control and into the hands of another team member or a partner. When you need an additional layer of protection, you can choose your own policy, for example by using the encryption feature and creating a named group of people who are the only ones with the power to make amendments. The IRM protection remains even when amendments are being made to the document in different locations. In addition, you can sync your protected documents to OneDrive for Business and syncing libraries, which was awkward and clunky before, is now simple to do. For document protection in the Cloud, Microsoft Azure Rights Management (RMS) protects all file types in any environment, shares files securely by email, allows monitoring and auditing, supports all commonly used devices (not just Windows computers) and supports B2B collaboration and on-premises services, in addition to providing excellent scalability and regulatory compliance.
Resistance is Futile
IRM is an important part of your Online Reputation Management Strategy (ORMS). When considering what provider to work with, ensure that the available features allow you to enforce your corporate policy, secure the safe passage of sensitive information, activate or end the life span of a document, restrict editing, viewing and forwarding, prevent screen printing and enable a full audit of your IRM. A sensible rule of thumb is to automate as much of the policy assignment as you can and enable users to add another layer of protection where necessary. It’s because this eliminates room for human error and forgetfulness. When IRM is this simple to implement, it would be foolish for us all to not make the most of this often-overlooked tool and reap the benefits of additional protection and enterprise-wide peace of mind that extends to your partners and clients.
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