Data Leak Prevention with IBM Notes Traveler 9

Today IBM has announced that they will provide Data Leak Prevention Capability with IBM Notes Traveler 9 UP1 (delivery is estimated Q2/2013). Awesome news! But was does that mean - Data Leak Prevention?

Data Leak Prevention (or DLP in short) means to have control where content - here: files - may go to. Let’s give you a real-world example: You’re running iOS or Android with Traveler and want to control

a) if somebody is allowed to export or view an attachment from an e-mail and b) to which application he is allowed to export the attachment.

As of today you can’t control that. And that means data may leave (or “leak from”) your organization. Some companies are today solving this problem with using specialized MDM solutions which provide their own “container applications” or dedicated synchronization proxies. The good thing on these containers and proxies is that you’re having control on the attachment handling. So you can define if and how content may leave an e-mail. The bad thing is that those container apps don’t have the real native experience (i. e. on iOS) or are not supported by IBM (on Android). In addition the proxy solutions are adding another layer of complexity to your existing infrastructure. They are talking to the Traveler server - not the device itself. That may lead to further problems.

IBM now has put effort in solving those use cases natively within IBM Notes Traveler 9. We’ve seen demos (which are probably subject to change, you know the IBM commitments about that) and they’ve been very, very nice and promising. Just imagine that you now don’t have to add more complexity to your environment, that you can control which application may be used to open files from your users’ e-mails (goodbye Dropbox) and that those benefits are for free!

So far this message has made my day here in Orlando. Can’t wait to get my hands on that!