Compliance Manager for File Shares – File Share Access Management

Today, organizations are making large investments in tools and human capital to control access to critical information in applications and databases containing structured data. At the same time, little or no effort is spent managing and protecting unstructured stores, such as file shares though most of the Digital Universe is unstructured data. These files include documents with sensitive, private or confidential data, including customer files, product plans, correspondence, contracts, schematics, financial records, memoranda, and many other types of documents whose exposure represents fines, litigation, reputational risk or loss of intellectual property.

File Share Identity and Access Concerns

Up until now, the tools to effectively understand and control access have not been readily available.

Despite the fact that file shares are ubiquitous in enterprises across the board, the limited size of these deployments and their security and governance models have hampered efforts to successfully control access risk within file share environments.

It's essential for system administrators as well as security and compliance personnel to be able to answer the following questions:

• How do I determine which shares represent the highest level of risk that I should focus on first?
• Are shares with sensitive data being managed using best practices consistent with the organization’s access policies?
• How do I identify the individuals who understand the content and are responsible for it?
• How do I engage those responsible individuals to control access to the content?
• Who has access to these shares, and is that access appropriate?
• How can I remove unnecessary access that is exposing the organization to unnecessary risk?

Traditional approaches for controlling access to file shares have either been too labor-intensive to implement or have left data owners crossing their fingers while they rubber-stamp access to assets they did not clearly understand or have the time to thoroughly investigate.

Solving the Problem

Organizations need a scalable solution that allows them to easily and quickly identify their riskiest file share assets-- so they can focus their efforts on the areas where they'll have the greatest impact. For high impact, high risk areas, organizations need to engage with their business people who understand how the data is being used, and apply controls commensurate to the risks associated with the file share assets.

Compliance Manager for Files Shares gives you a comprehensive view of your organization's file share assets, ranked by the level of risk they represent. The risk associated with a file share, folder or file is determined by an analysis of two variables: likelihood and impact.

Using out-of-the-box and configurable risk indicators, Compliance Manager for File Shares evaluates the likelihood and potential impact of the file share data being exposed.

For example, a file share with a wide open access has a higher likelihood of exposing data inappropriately than a file share that is locked down to a few individuals. A file named "Quarterly Results," residing in a folder named "Finance," would have a higher negative impact if exposed than would a file named "Company softball team roster" residing in the "Public" folder. 

Because these risk indicators automatically determine risk scores for all assets in the your organization's file share environment, you can now focus on the high risk assets that require your immediate attention.

Once the key focus areas of the file share environment have been identified, Compliance Manager for File Shares helps automates the process of identifying the business unit managers who are responsible for these critical file share assets and best understand how the data is being used in the organization. These responsible individuals can then be required to review and re-certify access to their data on a periodic basis.

Compliance Manager for File Shares provides a variety of remediation capabilities including: the ability to send a message to an IT administrator, open a ticket in a service desk system, or directly modify the user’s access rights through integration with AccountCourier, Courion’s leading enterprise provisioning solution.

• RiskAppraiser™ technology quickly evaluates your environment, helping deliver value in hours or days instead of weeks or months
• Risk scoring enables the deployment of controls commensurate with risk
• Ownership identification finds responsible asset owners who understand how to control access without impeding the business
• Business friendly processes automate the classification of data, review of access and remediation

• Easily and consistently determine risk scores for all assets in your file share environment
• View your organization's file share assets ranked by level of risk
• Out-of-the-box and configurable risk indicators evaluate likelihood and impact of file share data being exposed
• Focus on high risk assets that demand immediate attention

• Datasheet: Compliance Manager for File Shares
• Case Study: HCR ManorCare
• Webinar: Managing Access to File Shares featuring HCR Manor Care