Source: 10 Fold Communications, Inc.

Rohati Survey of CIOs, CISOs and IT Executives Exposes Security and Compliance Gap Caused by Widespread Use of Collaboration Applications

IT Executives Cite Need for Cost-Effective, Easy-to-Deploy Access Management Solutions to Prevent Unauthorized Users From Accessing Restricted Data and Applications

SUNNYVALE, CA--(Marketwire - December 17, 2008) - Rohati Systems, Inc., the leading supplier of agent-less access management solutions, today released survey results revealing that widespread use of collaboration applications coupled with the lack of cost-effective and easy-to-deploy access management solutions is eroding enterprise security and undermining regulatory compliance efforts. The survey polled 117 CIOs, CISOs and IT executive decision makers from global small and medium businesses to Fortune 100 enterprises in the financial services, healthcare, retail, manufacturing, technology, pharmaceutical, federal government, state/local government, and services industries.

Global enterprises are rapidly deploying collaboration applications to increase business responsiveness and improve global communications among employees, partners, contractors, customers, and in some cases even competitors. Over 50 percent of the respondents indicated that they primarily used a combination of Web-based Intranet portals, Common Internet File Systems (CIFS) and Microsoft SharePoint to enable collaboration.

Need to Collaborate, Cost and Complexity of Existing Solutions Creates Security Gap

Despite the widespread use of collaboration applications, 71 percent of the survey respondents stated that their organizations aren't taking adequate steps to mitigate risks associated with unauthorized access to data within the collaboration environment. Seventy percent of the respondents said that in order to effectively secure the collaborative environment, solutions that provide granular enforcement of authorization policies at the document level must be implemented, however, 61 percent responded that existing solutions are too expensive to deploy and 54 percent said solutions that require applications to be decoded are too complex to implement. Furthermore, 43 percent are concerned that access management solutions will impact mission critical systems.

"The naked truth this survey validates is that enterprises are deploying collaborative applications with security policies that are inadequate for enforcing the required controls to meet regulatory compliance mandates. Most of those polled indicated that the high cost and complexity associated with existing access management solutions are to blame for this lapse in security," said Rohati CEO Shane Buckley. "Organizations that rely on highly collaborative environments to conduct business are in desperate need of cost-effective access management solutions that can ubiquitously enforce granular access policies."

Why Does the Collaborative Environment Keep IT Security Up at Night?

--  Forty percent of respondents fear that inadequate
    security measures will lead to unauthorized users gaining
    access to restricted data and applications
--  Thirty-six percent of respondents fear that the
    widespread use of unchecked, collaborative applications
    could lead to a compliance violation
--  Twenty-nine percent of respondents fear that a lack of
    security in the collaboration environment could lead to a
    data breach
    

Other Survey Findings

--  Respondents are concerned about employees, domestic
    contractors, foreign contractors, partners, enterprise and
    consumer customers gaining unauthorized access to data and
    applications in the collaborative environment; with
    employees at the top of the list (50 percent)
--  Seventy-nine percent of respondents stated that their
    organizations rely primarily on basic authentication for
    security, including single sign-on and password
--  While most respondents said a variety of protective
    measures are needed to protect data and information in the
    collaborative environment, 70 percent agreed that granular
    authorization policies that control access at the document
    level were needed
--  Sixty-six percent of respondents believe that
    authorization enforcement policies controlling the ability
    to print, store and delete files are needed in their
    collaborative environment
    

About Rohati

Rohati Systems, Inc. is the leader in agent-less access management solutions. Rohati solutions quickly and cost-effectively enable companies to define, enforce and log access and authorization policies across applications and file shares from a single management console. Unlike traditional approaches to identity and access management, which are time- and cost-prohibitive to deploy broadly, the Rohati solution resides in the data center, is network-based to ensure high performance, and does not require agents or changes to applications. Delivering numerous industry firsts, Rohati enables companies to safeguard all their data assets to protect their business and adhere to compliance regulations. Rohati is backed by Matrix Partners and Foundation Capital, and is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. To learn more, visit www.rohati.com.