NEW YORK, Nov. 12, 2014 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Varonis Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq:VRNS), the leading provider of software solutions for unstructured, human-generated enterprise data, today launched the Varonis Unstructured Data Risk Assessment, a comprehensive professional services offering available for helping enterprises identify areas where sensitive data is potentially exposed and implement permanent controls.
Based on nearly a decade of expertise in unstructured data analysis and security, the Varonis Unstructured Data Risk Assessment can be used by enterprises to scope and prioritize remediation efforts that, once completed, will significantly reduce the threat of data loss, theft or misuse. The scope of the assessment can be customized and typically includes detail on areas such as:
- Folders exposed to global access groups (e.g. everyone, domain users, authenticated users)
- Sensitive files with global access groups
- Folders with inconsistent permissions
- Users with too much access
- Unused, enabled user accounts
Compelling Use Cases From Pilot Phase
The Varonis Unstructured Data Risk Assessment has been piloted with several customers and is now widely available. Use cases have emphasized the value of the assessment's insight. Here are some vivid examples:
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When two healthcare companies recently merged, they turned to the Varonis Unstructured Data Risk Assessment to help remediate security complications that arose when one of the companies had not been effectively managing its Active Directory environments. Many active user accounts actually belonged to long-departed employees and contractors, posing a serious risk to patient data and increasing the possibility of regulatory consequences. Varonis identified inactive user accounts, unnecessary groups and weak or overly permissive access controls and worked with the customer to prioritize how to permanently address each issue.
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A financial services company discovered it was potentially exposed to insider trading violations because an employee who changed jobs from the ratings department to the brokerage department maintained his original access and permissions – potentially breaking the ethical wall separating the buy and sell sides of the business. By using his access to view ratings data, the employee could have had the opportunity to purchase stock based on non-public information. Varonis identified the over-permissive folders and recommended additional processes and solutions to prevent this before it happened.
- A media and entertainment company was experiencing significant increases in its storage budget due to the growth of unstructured data. Varonis helped the company determine that 70% of its data being stored on high-cost disk arrays was stale and could be deleted or moved to cheaper storage.
Ken Spinner, Varonis Vice President of Global Field Engineering, said, "Many organizations struggle with understanding the risks associated with their rapidly growing volumes of unstructured data. These are the documents, spreadsheets, presentations, media files and other business data stored in file servers and NAS devices. These include critical and often sensitive or confidential data assets and in many cases no one is aware that this information is widely accessible, often by everyone in the company. With the Varonis Unstructured Data Risk Assessment, we can empower enterprises with actionable insight into how they can best prioritize their use of Varonis technology to improve and automate data security and data management and significantly reduce the possibility of a data breach."
Working in concert with a company's IT staff after the installation of Varonis DatAdvantage, Varonis Professional Services personnel collect and analyze metadata from key infrastructure components and return a detailed, written analysis to be reviewed with the staff. The written analysis, titled The Varonis Unstructured Data Risk Assessment Report, will summarize key findings, rank identified weaknesses in order of risk, and provide a detailed explanation of each finding. A typical assessment takes between one to two weeks, depending on the size and complexity of the environment.
For more information on Varonis' professional services offerings, please visit www.varonis.com/services/professional-services/. Follow Varonis and join in on the conversation: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Google+.
About Varonis
Varonis is the leading provider of software solutions for unstructured, human-generated enterprise data. Varonis provides an innovative software platform that allows enterprises to map, analyze, manage and migrate their unstructured data. Varonis specializes in human-generated data, a type of unstructured data that includes an enterprise's spreadsheets, word processing documents, presentations, audio files, video files, emails, text messages and any other data created by employees. This data often contains an enterprise's financial information, product plans, strategic initiatives, intellectual property and numerous other forms of vital information. IT and business personnel deploy Varonis software for a variety of use cases, including data governance, data security, archiving, file synchronization, enhanced mobile data accessibility and information collaboration. As of September 30, 2014, Varonis had approximately 3,000 customers, spanning leading firms in the financial services, public, healthcare, industrial, energy & utilities, technology, consumer and retail, education and media & entertainment sectors.