File security vendor FinalCode launched its namesake technology in the United States on April 14, providing another option for enterprises to securely manage and control data.
“We are attacking and solving the data leakage dilemma,” Gord Boyce, CEO of FinalCode, told eWEEK.
Boyce said that persistence across multiple platforms is a key capability of FinalCode. In addition, the FinalCode platform works on top of existing enterprise applications and platforms, he said.
“So if you’re using Dropbox or Box, we just make those solutions more secure,” Boyce said. “FinalCode can be delivered as software as a service [SaaS], an appliance or a hybrid of both.”
The way the FinalCode platform works is that a user sets up permissions on a specific folder, which is then encrypted and protected with policy-based control. Currently, however, the FinalCode platform does not automatically encrypt all sensitive data.
“We need to know about files in order to encrypt them,” Boyce explained. “We’re not going out looking for the sensitive files; we’re protecting the sensitive files that organizations know about.”
A risk with any file encryption technology is the human element where a user attempts to print a file when he or she gets access. FinalCode can prevent printing and also put watermarks on a file to identify it as being confidential, according to Boyce.
FinalCode can be configured to work with existing enterprise access systems, including Microsoft’s Active Directory. For example, FinalCode can be set up to pull from Active Directory to configure access for everyone who is part of a company’s finance group, Boyce said. From a deployment perspective, both ends of a connection will need to have FinalCode technology for the platform to work. FinalCode has a reader technology similar to how Adobe Acrobat is a reader for PDF files, he added.
FinalCode also enables controls over encrypted documents, including the ability to revoke and delete.
“Sending a command to remotely delete in Windows is not that technically complicated, but the architecture we have is quite complicated and it is patented,” Boyce said.
FinalCode’s primary investor, publicly traded Japanese company DigitalArts, first came up with the idea for FinalCode in 2010, when the first technology components were patented; FinalCode in the U.S. was founded in 2014, according to Boyce.
“It’s my job to build out the operations in the U.S.,” he said. “We’re now launching the product publicly, and we have a handful of customers already in the U.S.”
The plan is to first build out FinalCode in the United States and then expand the company and product reach globally.
“The vision is to have the encryption across an environment, and right now you have to know which files are sensitive,” Boyce said. “In the future, any file that is created will automatically have some form of encryption on it, so all files will be protected.”
Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at eWEEK and InternetNews.com. Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist.