RSA to Acquire Tablus

HOPKINTON, Mass., Aug. 9 -- RSA, The Security Division of EMC, today announced its intent to acquire Tablus Inc., a leading provider of data loss prevention solutions based in San Mateo, California. Tablus is privately-held; further details of the transaction are not being disclosed.

The Tablus solution will add industry-leading data discovery and classification, monitoring, and data loss prevention capabilities to RSA's data security portfolio, helping to enable the company to better meet the market's need for information-centric security by: finding and identifying sensitive data; preventing that data from "leaking" outside the organization; and simplifying the management of data security through policy-driven controls.

"Information security has clearly become an information management problem: today, many organizations struggle to establish exactly what data they have and where it all is -- let alone how sensitive it is," said Art Coviello, Executive Vice President at EMC and President of RSA. "The hard reality of information security is that you cannot secure what you cannot manage, and you cannot manage what you cannot find. Once completed, this acquisition will significantly expand our ability to help organizations of all sizes truly secure their data - and accelerate our mission to bring information-centric security to life."

Locating and Classifying the Data

Data discovery and classification is a critical first step towards securing data in most organizations, as IT departments grapple with an explosion of digital information to store, manage and protect. This challenge is complicated by the fact that sensitive data exists in three different forms (database records; messages, such as email; and loose files) and in three different contexts (at-rest on datacenter storage; in-motion through the network; or in-use on laptops, mobile devices and portable storage). Comprehensive data discovery and classification must directly address this complexity.

To that end, RSA will combine Tablus' products with the EMC Infoscape intelligent information management solution to create a common "platform" that is engineered to enable organizations to discover, classify and take policy-based action on all of their data. Specifically, Tablus' expertise in quickly and accurately locating and protecting valuable intellectual property, sensitive personal information, and security-related content will be combined with Infoscape's solutions for managing data according to specific governance requirements regarding retention and archiving, as well as preparation for litigation support through e-discovery.

Preventing Data Loss

An understanding of the information landscape gives organizations the ability to establish and enforce data security policy and prevent data loss. This enforcement can take many forms, from data erasure, bulk encryption and digital rights management to simple movement and quarantine. These various enforcement mechanisms need to be applied at different points in the IT system: at the point of storage, at the point of creation, or at other times in the network.

In recognition of this reality, RSA plans not only to integrate the Tablus offering with its existing data control assets in the fields of encryption, key management and information rights management, but also to partner openly with industry leaders to enable policy-driven enforcement of data security where it makes the most sense.