UK GOVERNMENT RESEARCH VALIDATES ACCARIO STRATEGY

Release of 2008 Information Security Breaches Survey highlights problems with traditional approaches to remote access

Milpitas, CA - Wednesday 6th August 2008 - The UK based 2008 Information Security Breaches Survey has been released for 2008 by the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (www.berr.gov.uk). This report comes out every 2 years and documents trends in Information Security across the spectrum of organizations from small to large.

Whilst the report shows that compared to 2002 the standards around basic information security (for example anti-virus, email scanning and backups) are running at 94% plus, even in small organizations there is concern that some major exposures remain, specifically in areas around strong authentication, control of data on mobile USB storage devices and access to corporate systems by unauthorized people is four times higher than in 2000.

Since the launch of the AccessStick® in 2007, Accario has maintained that strong authentication is an area that everyone agrees is best practice but few people implemented, infact our internal tracking has shown that around 20% of customers attach strong authentication to remote access. Interestingly, the survey cites that only 14% of companies use strong authentication, a rise of only 9% since 2002.

When you combine this with the fact that there has been a sustained rise in unauthorized access to corporate systems the argument for moving to a system more closely tied to a user with biometrics does gain momentum, after all, you can't write your finger print down like a passcode for a token.

Early in 2008 a customer approached us and said "Could we get an AccessStick that was just for users who needed to move data around?" and after conversations to define a specification and talking to a wider audience we developed the StorageStick™ and released it in June 2008.

The idea is that we use the same hardware as the AccessStick, it plugs into the same Management Suite as the AccessStick, but it is has the VirtuaWrapper™ virtualization technology removed and is designed to offer secure storage.

The secure USB storage space is crowded and there is no predominant player, otherwise 67% of organizations wouldn't be found to have no policy or mechanism for controlling USB data.

The StorageStick major benefit is its ability to scan the device in a similar way to 'NAC' and make a policy decision about whether to unlock its data on that end point. This can be done offline or online and suddenly makes a USB stick intelligent.

After all the fact that you have a device you use in a sandstorm or throw in a stream is a moot point when it unlocks data on an infected machine, all you end up with is a really secure virus.

For Accario there has never been a better time to evaluate the AccessStick or StorageStick and the timely release of the BERR report serves to underline the business case for many organizations. If you would like to read a full version of the report goto http://www.berr.gov.uk/files/file45713.pdf.

If you would like to find out more about our products or have a questions please email us at enquiry@accario.com.