Symantec Strengthens Protection Against Data Loss at the Endpoint

Data Loss Prevention 9.0 to Address New Threats with Most Significant Product Release To-Date

THE HAGUE, Netherlands – Symantec Vision .– As part of its Information Risk Management Strategy, Symantec Corp. (Nasdaq: SYMC) today announced Symantec Data Loss Prevention, version 9.0, providing organizations with increased ability to discover, monitor and protect confidential information wherever it is stored or used. Symantec provides companies with comprehensive data loss prevention (DLP) coverage across endpoint, network and storage systems through a single, unified interface to protect structured and unstructured data.

Consistent product innovation, responsiveness to customer requests and integration with complementary Symantec technologies are driving Symantec’s industry leadership in DLP. Key areas of innovation in the new version of Symantec Data Loss Prevention include broadened coverage of endpoint events, simplified endpoint DLP agent management and enhanced data discovery capabilities.

Comprehensive Endpoint Event Coverage

Since its inception, DLP has been primarily focused on stopping inadvertent employee mistakes and broken business processes that expose sensitive data. However, many organizations believe confidential information is most at risk from malicious acts when employees are mobile and not connected to the corporate network. To address this threat, Symantec Data Loss Prevention 9.0 is adding broader coverage for data loss events that begin at the endpoint. Symantec will now prevent data loss from employees using laptops to send email, Webmail and instant messages while disconnected from the corporate network.

At the endpoint, Symantec Data Loss Prevention is designed to stop the copying or pasting of sensitive information and even prevents this data from being electronically printed or faxed. These new features add to Symantec’s existing controls that prevent sensitive data from being copied to USB devices and CD/DVD drives. Symantec’s expertise in content-aware detection, the ability to recognize specific content regardless of packaging, is also vital to successful endpoint DLP. With comprehensive coverage of endpoint DLP events, Symantec provides uninterrupted data loss prevention, regardless if employees are on or off the corporate network.

Endpoint DLP: Easy Deployment and Management

A critical success factor in deploying new agent technology across an organization is whether the solution can locate all the endpoints, deploy the agent successfully and troubleshoot as necessary. Endpoint DLP rollouts commonly require the technology to be deployed to high-risk departments first, followed by phased roll-outs to the remainder of the organization. Symantec Data Loss Prevention 9.0 will help customers simplify their endpoint DLP deployments and ongoing management by embedding Symantec’s mature agent management technology allowing companies to continuously discover new endpoint assets, automatically deploy agents and troubleshoot endpoint agents. By embedding proven technology from Symantec’s Altiris product family, Symantec Data Loss Prevention will deliver proven endpoint management technology used by more than 22,000 companies around the world.

“Consistent innovations in the DLP solution from Symantec make it easier and more effective to protect our information across the entire organization,” said David Aflak, senior manager of network operations, Management Information Services for Esurance. “Advancements focused on data protection, such as a single endpoint management console, make the solution even easier to deploy and manage across our organization.”

Advanced Data Discovery

In addition to enhanced endpoint DLP protection, Symantec Data Loss Prevention 9.0 continues to advance its data discovery capabilities. Enterprise customers require two scanning modes for content discovery, the traditional mode where every file in a content repository is inspected for policy violations and a compliance mode where servers and repositories with compliance violations are quickly summarized. Symantec will provide both of these options in a single solution for customers, something no other product currently available can do.

Faster inventory scanning aids companies in quickly identifying data repositories that contain confidential information to increase their visibility into data risk and compliance issues. “Compliance Scanning” mode, for example, will greatly reduces time spent on scanning. Organizations will also be able to assess the risks associated with sensitive data stored in PST files. Finally, companies will be able to automatically identify owners of confidential data, which is crucial to managing the clean-up of scattered, sensitive files and enabling a scalable remediation process.

Smart Product Integrations

In addition to leveraging Altiris to simplify endpoint DLP agent management, the Symantec Management Platform, formerly called Altiris Platform, can also be used to manage Symantec Endpoint Protection and Symantec Backup Exec System Recovery agents - helping Symantec customers streamline rollouts, facilitate migration from competitive products and secure endpoint configurations. Symantec Data Loss Prevention 9.0 and Symantec Brightmail Gateway integration provides customers with the ability to inspect both inbound and outbound email for malware, spam and data loss risks. Additionally, Symantec DLP 9.0 is also planned to scan staged backups conducted from Symantec Backup Exec System Recovery.

“Smart integrations with Symantec solutions like the Symantec Management Platform, Brightmail Gateway and Backup Exec System Recovery allow us to expand the boundaries of data loss prevention and surpass customer expectations,” said Michael Wolfe, vice president of data loss prevention solutions at Symantec. “By coupling our complementary, industry-leading technologies with our global reach, Symantec helps customers around the world confidently prevent the loss of sensitive information.”

Symantec Data Loss Prevention 9.0 is expected to be available in early 2009.