Data Management with Boldon James: Classify and Protect Your Data

Data Management with Boldon James: Classify and Protect Your Data

Boldon James is a data classification and secure communication specialist recognized worldwide for innovation, outstanding service quality and effective technology solutions.

Boldon James File Classifier is an important part of the Classifier Foundation Suite and allows users or systems to classify any kind of file found in Windows Explorer. This makes it easier to categorize and label data appropriately, through both manual and automatic methods, in order to apply security policies to all data.

Email Classifier goes beyond local documents and files, giving Outlook users the ability to classify emails according to their sensitivity. That classification is carried out by creating both visual and metadata labels on the emails. Once emails are labelled, controlling the data means those emails and files can be routed so that they reach only the people you specify. That prevents your sensitive information from being lost by accident.

Notes Classifier: email is the core collaboration tool for many organizations, so it is no surprise that data loss caused by user error is a common source of leaks. Boldon James Notes Classifier brings labelling and Data Loss Prevention (DLP) processes together by helping users classify information so that relevant visual labels can be applied to HCL Notes® email messages. That allows a more effective strategy for protecting your sensitive data.

Office Classifier: organizations are seeing a dramatic increase in the amount of unstructured data created and shared by their employees. Since Microsoft Office© is the primary productivity tool most commonly used to create that data, having the right security controls in place is vital to handling the growing risk of data loss and to addressing users' need to protect sensitive documents.

Boldon James Mac Classifier brings the benefits of user-driven data classification to organizations using Mac devices. The product offers Mac users an unmatched experience in integrating data classification into their use of core applications such as Outlook, Word, Excel and PowerPoint, extending the data classification capabilities of the Microsoft Office suite for Mac.

Data classification is an approach used to identify, protect and effectively manage information, and it is regarded as best practice. Applied as part of a layered security strategy, it can defend a business against a range of threats — from external attacks to careless or well-meaning insiders — while at the same time unlocking the full potential of its data to drive innovation and productivity.

At its simplest, data classification is the process of dividing data into categories so that it can be used as effectively and efficiently as possible. From a security standpoint, classification involves categorizing and labelling data for an organization according to its level of sensitivity or value — determining, for example, whether data that constitutes a trade secret is for internal use only or may be made public. This approach is more effective than limiting data security to traditional methods, that is, building walls around networks, databases, applications or devices, given that it is usually users who interact with data and that a large share of breaches stem from human error.

The first step is to establish a policy for which labels or classifications should be assigned to which files or emails. The company can then decide how that policy should be communicated to employees and how it will be enforced. Some organizations choose to adopt a purely manual labelling policy, while others work with software tools that use more advanced data classification techniques to add labels to email messages, documents and files automatically.

Visual marking helps people understand how data should be handled, while the label is also embedded as metadata in the file properties. That way, data can only be accessed or used in line with the relevant classification rules. This approach means the classification travels with the data, regardless of where it is sent or where it is stored. Three different techniques — paper-based classification, automatic classification and user-applied classification — are distinct approaches, each with its own particular benefits and potential challenges.

The label values Boldon James writes into a file's metadata can be used by data leak prevention software to stop files leaving the company. For example, when someone tries to take a file classified as internal outside the organization, integration with a data leak prevention product can keep that data inside the company and secure.

Labelling company data with classification applications such as Boldon James will also help data leak prevention software be used far more effectively.