Cisco Baking RSA Data Loss Prevention Technology Into Its E-mail Security Mix

EMC ’s RSA security division is bringing its data loss prevention technology to bear in the e-mail security space through integration with Cisco’s IronPort appliances. 

By the fall, the DLP (data loss prevention) technology from RSA will be built into the Cisco IronPort C-Series appliances. The integration is the result of a partnership Cisco and EMC announced at last year's RSA security conference in San Francisco. The combined solution, to be offered as RSA Email DLP for Cisco IronPort, is aimed at providing accurate and easy-to-use content classification that can discover and protect sensitive data before it leaves through e-mail. 

“Preventing data loss is an essential requirement for our customers," said Keith Valory, director of product management in the Security Technology Business Unit for Cisco, in a statement. "Today, we are providing accurate and intuitive solutions for monitoring and preventing data loss where it is extremely critical: on email and on the Web. … Embedding RSA 's data-classification technology and policies into our email security solutions puts Cisco in a unique position to offer a complete solution targeted at protecting data in motion over email."

The integrated solution is engineered to include a wide selection of pre-defined out-of-the-box policies maintained and updated by RSA's  Information Policy and Classification Research team.

IDC analyst Christian Christiansen said organizations are always looking to leverage their existing investments in infrastructure to protect data, and this latest integration gives them a chance to do exactly that.   

“It not only lowers the total cost of ownership for the customer, but also helps them build on a systems approach to data loss prevention,” Christiansen said in a statement. “Having a unified policy and classification framework across the enterprise is crucial to the success of enterprise DLP projects."