Senforce announced on Monday that they will incorporate data encryption into their NAC offering.
Back in March, I suggested that a natural evolution of encryption and NAC would eventually bring the two together. Kind of like chocolate and peanut butter.
Now, Senforce is making a play in that direction.
I'll spare you the trauma of reading their press release. Suffice to say after they finish huffing about how they are the leader and all that - you know, the usual press release BS. They eventually say a little bit about how they are planning to prevent "thumbsucking".
A term that they are a little overly proud of creating.
(Thumbsucking refers to data that is "sucked" off of corporate devices and onto USB drives. The term "slurping" has been around longer and refers to programs that automatically search for certain file types on a hard drive and pull them over to an iPod or other removable device when it attaches to the computer.)
So, verbiage aside, I am glad to see someone pick up this angle of data security. Right now, everyone I speak to is concerned about USB proliferation in the workplace. For organizations that have sensitive data (i.e. everyone), this is a critical issue.
The beauty of NAC is that it can easily incorporate new technologies and flash points into controllable security policies as they arise. This kind of flexibility and control are what is required as data security evolves.
I always tell organizations that without NAC, your security policies have no teeth. policies are basically words on a paper with no means of observing or enforcing behaviour. NAC gives you the ability to change all of that.
Quite honestly, I'm not sure how CEOs/CFOs/CIOs/CISOs can sleep at night - with all of the current regulatory constraints that are flying around, not knowing what is on the network, and then not having the ability to do anything about what is on your network, even if you did know.
Hmmm - guess I should be glad I'm not in that position.
So, while I can't recommend Senforce's offering yet since I haven't had a chance to play with it, I will say that I like the thought they have put into the features listed and look forward to seeing more of it (and the offerings from other NAC vendors) in the future.
Michael Mongold
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