TrendMessaging- and storage compliance technologies on the rise

Whenever a doctor, nurse or administrator in Georgia’s DeKalb Medical Center sends an e-mail, the message detours through a special box in the three-hospital system’s computing cluster. The box analyzes the e-mail, scanning for sensitive information like patient names, prescription histories and Social Security numbers. More than 1,200 times a month, the box finds such private data and automatically routes the message to a server that encrypts it for secrecy before sending it to its original destination. Sometimes, though, the box is unsure what to do, so it asks Sharon Finney. Finney is the information security administrator, which makes her responsible for keeping the hospital in tune with medical privacy laws. Several times a week, the messaging-control system, set up by Cupertino, California-based Proofpoint, alerts Finney to e-mails awaiting her review.

Such careful oversight is becoming more common. Many organizations, fearful that inside information can slip out through innumerable digital avenues, now govern precisely what employees can or cannot put into e-mails, instant messages, Web postings, and even offline documents. Employers, however, can not hold their workers’ hands all the time — so they are increasingly turning to software that tries to do it for them. Offices have had strong computer controls for years, from inbound protections like antivirus programs to filtering technologies that block porn or Web e-mail sites. AP reports that this new generation of software sticks its nose into even more of what people do all day. For example, one communications-control vendor, New York-based Orchestria, says its software could have prevented the CEO of Whole Foods Market. from posting the rival-denigrating comments on Internet message boards that he later came to regret. How does Orchestria’s software do it? Answer: The company’s software can be set to notice when certain keywords — a competitor’s name, for example — are entered in documents or Web forms. The software can be set to block such actions or warn users that they are breaking company policy.

Now, this fine-grained, automated monitoring is moving beyond tightly regulated industries such as health care and financial services owing to a new rules from government and the credit-card industry. Organizations also fear customer-account data breaches, insider thefts and other public-relations nightmares. “The driver is ethics and reputation,” says Joe Fantuzzi, CEO of San Francisco-based Workshare, the software of which analyzes data-leakage risks. “Whether I’m regulated or not,