BTG company adds Devicewall to its offerings

The Software Asset Management (SAM) business unit within the Microsoft Solutions division within BTG Systems Integration, a subsidiary of Bytes Technology Group SA (Pty) Ltd, has included Devicewall to its offerings to assist customers in securing intellectual property and mitigating data theft threats.

The portfolio of services available from the BTG Systems Integration - Microsoft Solutions division SAM business unit include the management of highly valuable enterprise data as well as ensuring the security of this critical asset. To this end, the organisation has forged a reseller agreement with software vendor Centennial to deploy its Devicewall solution.

With the recent proliferation of mobile devices with integrated storage capacity which are able to be plugged directly on to the network via the high-speed data port of any authorised PC, ensuring that sensitive data cannot simply be copied to an unauthorised mass storage medium has become a significant security challenge. It has become easier than ever for employees, who still account for 80% of the security threats within any organisation today, to simply walk in and remove confidential data or even introduce malicious code using portable storage.

Comments Arthur Bucas, Divisional Manager at BTG Systems Integration - Microsoft Solutions SAM division: "With Devicewall the risk of data being stolen from your organisation using a mobile storage device is eliminated, giving your organisation yet another level of control over its most valuable asset - its data or intellectual property. The solution also stops inappropriate files from being transferred to the network via personal storage to avoid vicarious liability for the actions of your employees."

Until Devicewall was developed, the only method of ensuring this measure of data security has been to restrict the functionality of the IT systems, and therefore the productivity of the user on these systems, by simply blocking these personal devices entirely from being used on the controlled corporate network.

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Devicewall provides the control of unauthorised storage devices across the entire network from a central location while providing the infrastructure with the flexibility to distinguish between accepted mobile devices and potential risks.

Devicewall is able to manage a host of connectivity interfaces and most of the commonly used devices which could be attached to your systems through various access ports. With the product, from USB and Bluetooth to IDE, each connected device is checked against an access control list which, based on user and acceptable usage policies, grants or blocks the device rights on the secure network. The policies can be extracted or integrated into Active Directory or domain controller server as and when necessary.

As each system logs on, policies are checked against the central server, and can also be actively pushed out to specific clients should a user legitimately require access for the device, be it a PDA, USB memory stick or DVD-Writer, for a temporary period. The client software can be configured to be silent, and merely prevent access without any alerts, or to actively communicate the policies being enforced to the user as well as any limitations on devices currently connected to the system. Users also have an offline access option by requesting an offline licence key, which will then grant them access to a specific device for that active Windows session.

Concludes Bucas: "Devicewall provides us with an even more complete asset management solution in our SAM basket. As technology evolves new solutions must be created to manage ongoing threats to an organisation by devices and their interaction with mission-critical business infrastructures. We are pleased to be able to bring this unique enhanced level of environment management to the local market."