EMC Plugs Data Leaks

EMC’s RSA security division has acquired data loss prevention startup Tablus, which moves the storage giant into the anti-data leakage (ADL) market and also gives it additional discovery and classification capabilities.

EMC didn’t disclose the value of the deal, but The 451 Group analysts pegged it at around $50 million.

In a recent report, The 451 Group predicted that EMC would make a move into the ADL space, calling it “almost a no-brainer. … For EMC, the value proposition is obvious: With Infoscape doing discovery and Documentum doing content management, version control and other good stuff, and its RSA division doing identity and access management, remote access and authorization and enterprise security information management, ADL is the last piece of the puzzle. … ADL is the missing link between the authorization to touch data and the systems that currently track, store and protect it.”

Tablus’ technology will help EMC by finding and identifying sensitive data, preventing that data from “leaking” outside the organization, and simplifying data security management.

“Information security has clearly become an information management problem,” stated RSA president Art Coviello. “Today, many organizations struggle to establish exactly what data they have and where it all is — let alone how sensitive it is. The hard reality of information security is that you cannot secure what you cannot manage, and you cannot manage what you cannot find. Once completed, this acquisition will significantly expand our ability to help organizations of all sizes truly secure their data — and accelerate our mission to bring information-centric security to life.”

RSA chief strategy officer Dennis Hoffman said EMC could have chosen to fold the acquisition into its Content Management and Archive division, but he said it “fits the security use case” best, providing policy-driven security wherever data can be found, in storage, on the network or on laptops.

EMC will combine Tablus’ products with the EMC Infoscape intelligent information management solution to create a common platform for organizations to discover, classify and take policy-based action on all of their data. Tablus’ expertise in locating and protecting intellectual property, sensitive personal information and security-related content will be combined with Infoscape’s solutions for managing data according to specific governance requirements for retention, archiving and e-discovery.

RSA will integrate the Tablus offering with its encryption, key management and information rights management technologies so customers will be able to establish and enforce data security policy for issues such as accessing, copying, deleting and encrypting sensitive files.

The acquisition is expected to close early in the fourth quarter.

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