A Content-Aware Security Solution for SharePoint

Love or hate SharePoint, it continues to spread: 70 percent of the largest global organizations surveyed this year by AIIM are using SharePoint today. But only 20 percent of the respondents to that survey said they had enough confidence in SharePoint security to store sensitive information.

Which leaves SharePoint security vendors in a plum position as boosters of SharePoint security confidence. One such booster, HiSoftware, today announced a SharePoint security solution that it says is the only one enabling both policy and user-based classification with encryption at the file level. HiSoftware Compliance Sheriff SP (formerly HiSoftware Compliance Sheriff for SharePoint), and the new HiSoftware Security Sheriff SP, aim to protect sensitive data in SharePoint.

The solutions continuously scan all SharePoint content (documents, libraries, lists, and forums) as it moves in and out of the environment. They then identify specific policy violations and classify the items via the addition of SharePoint metadata values.

Once classified by the rules engine, these values are used by Security Sheriff SP to encrypt or apply permissions that restrict access to the item, regardless of the permissions applied to the larger SharePoint site, library, or list in which the item physically resides. Security Sheriff also tracks the document's full chain of custody and, when deployed with the HiSoftware Connector for Microsoft Outlook, can prevent it from leaving SharePoint via email to an unauthorized user.

HiSoftware Compliance Sheriff SP and HiSoftware Security Sheriff SP will be generally available on December 16, 2011. See the company's website for more info.