AMS
Case Study
AMS
AMS - Advanced Messaging Security – is a centralized, secure, and process-oriented email gateway with an integrated data leakage prevention solution. The AMS product family establishes the foundation for secure and reliable email communication in the B2B and B2C environment.
Data protection with AMS eGUARD
It’s happened to the best of us. You hit “send” and there it goes out into the world and you realize it shouldn’t have. Either it was to the wrong person or it was the wrong content, or even both. Whatever the scenario: you’ve got some ‘splainin’ to do. In personal correspondence, a smiley will smooth it over easily enough, but in business or (heaven forbid) the political world, it can have some serious consequences. While the private sphere is dominated by text messages, in the professional world the communication medium of choice is still email.
The Task
According to a 2017 study by the Radicati Group, 269 billion emails are sent daily—the equivalent of circa 2.4 million emails per second. Amongst all this email traffic, a few of these messages reach the wrong recipient, have the wrong attachment, or contain classified information which was actually intended for company-internal communication only.
With this flood of emails – all this data in motion – it’s difficult to keep track of what leaves your own email server. An email message is legally considered a telecommunications service and thus subject to telecommunications secrecy and special provisions of the Telecommunications Act. Yet this act provides no legal basis for prohibiting your mistaken addressee from disseminating or otherwise using misdirected emails. So the disclaimers to that effect appended to emails have no teeth in the vast majority of cases.
Misdirected emails mean data leakage from your company – whether intended or unintended. All these scenarios have one thing in common: They can be expensive for a company. The ultimate result is damage to its public image and liabilities to deal with.
With this flood of emails – all this data in motion – it’s difficult to keep track of what leaves your own email server. An email message is legally considered a telecommunications service and thus subject to telecommunications secrecy and special provisions of the Telecommunications Act. Yet this act provides no legal basis for prohibiting your mistaken addressee from disseminating or otherwise using misdirected emails. So the disclaimers to that effect appended to emails have no teeth in the vast majority of cases.
Misdirected emails mean data leakage from your company – whether intended or unintended. All these scenarios have one thing in common: They can be expensive for a company. The ultimate result is damage to its public image and liabilities to deal with.
The Solution
The data loss prevention solution AMS eGUARD controls outgoing email traffic. Data loss prevention, or DLP for short, is a method for recognizing and preventing unauthorized communication or disclosure of confidential data. AMS eGUARD combines the strengths of automatic recognition with the wealth of experience and intuition possessed by actual users to help companies and government authorities protect their data, their intellectual property, and their ideas – in a manner that’s integrated, effective, and transparent.
Four-eyes control mechanisms are found in airplane cockpits, or payment transactions, for example. The four-eyes principle is an essential component of daily business operations such as signature policies: when there are important or critical decisions with external consequences, two different people must sign off on them.
Why not apply this control mechanism to email messages too? AMS eGUARD is a digital, more-eyes monitoring system for outgoing email which has proven itself over its many long years of service to our customers.
Before an email, a fax, or text message leaves its home exchange server, AMS eGUARD presents it to one or two other coworkers or superiors, subjecting it to a four- to six-eye control. The email leaves the email server for the outside world only in the case of unanimous approval by the authorized persons. If the email is rejected, the sender is automatically informed that it may be in violation of the DLP, and he or she can make the desired changes or confer with others on the matter. This effective and simple control mechanism reduces the danger of (unnoticed) leakage of sensitive, erroneous, or unwanted information from the company.
Along with human monitoring, a number of automated control steps can be inserted prior to it, or the existing security infrastructure can be integrated into it. AMS eGUARD already scans for critical content, IRM classifications, prohibited domains, etc., making decisions easier for those with approval authority.
AMS eGUARD can mirror the hierarchy and chain of authority corresponding to your company’s organizational or team structure, while simultaneously considering operational and legal aspects.
Four-eyes control mechanisms are found in airplane cockpits, or payment transactions, for example. The four-eyes principle is an essential component of daily business operations such as signature policies: when there are important or critical decisions with external consequences, two different people must sign off on them.
Why not apply this control mechanism to email messages too? AMS eGUARD is a digital, more-eyes monitoring system for outgoing email which has proven itself over its many long years of service to our customers.
Before an email, a fax, or text message leaves its home exchange server, AMS eGUARD presents it to one or two other coworkers or superiors, subjecting it to a four- to six-eye control. The email leaves the email server for the outside world only in the case of unanimous approval by the authorized persons. If the email is rejected, the sender is automatically informed that it may be in violation of the DLP, and he or she can make the desired changes or confer with others on the matter. This effective and simple control mechanism reduces the danger of (unnoticed) leakage of sensitive, erroneous, or unwanted information from the company.
Along with human monitoring, a number of automated control steps can be inserted prior to it, or the existing security infrastructure can be integrated into it. AMS eGUARD already scans for critical content, IRM classifications, prohibited domains, etc., making decisions easier for those with approval authority.
AMS eGUARD can mirror the hierarchy and chain of authority corresponding to your company’s organizational or team structure, while simultaneously considering operational and legal aspects.
„Misdirected emails represent data leakage from a company – whether intended or unintended. With its four-eyes principle, AMS eGUARD significantly reduces the danger of the leakage of sensitive, erroneous, or unwanted information from a company.“
The Result
Behind AMS eGUARD is our 4i-Principle:
- **Intelligent**: *eGUARD* combines the strengths of automatic recognition with the expertise of the real specialists in the field – namely yours!
- **Individual**: *eGUARD* can be adapted to the needs and working modes of each individual team member
- **Integrated**: *eGUARD* can be integrated seamlessly into existing workflows
- **Incontestable**: *eGUARD* provides an uninterrupted and indisputable chain of evidence
AMS eGUARD implements an email relay system within the corporate server infrastructure in which the relay intercepts every outgoing message. Besides performing a rules-based content check, all messages are automatically subjected to a strict sequence of signatories who are authorized to approve or reject them. The fully automatic AMS eGUARD Content Checkers shine a light into your email traffic and
- block prohibited domains,
- block specific file formats for all outgoing emails,
- give statistics on the frequency of the recognized restrictions,
- and generate reports, e.g. for security administrators.
And for standard users, AMS eGUARD is integrated to be minimally invasive to their existing work processes. Within their standard email clients, e.g. Microsoft Outlook, senders receive any and all notifications there, including the demand for authorization. Since the email that needs authorization is attached to the demand, the entire authorization process can be performed without exiting the email client. And of course there’s also a web dashboard available, allowing users to get a detailed overview of their workflows and authorization histories. Informieren Find out more about AMS eGUARD, or contact us directly. We’ll be happy to consult with you about how eGUARD can be integrated into your infrastructure and how it can support you in retaining control over your data, your intellectual property, and your ideas.
Write us to info@dialogika.de or call us +49 6897 935-0
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About us
DIaLOGIKa GmbH creates customized software solutions for national and international clients. Our work focuses on the innovation fields of Telecom Data Request / Provision Procedure, Telecommunications, Document Life Cycle, Digital Security, Embedded Systems, Green Mobility, and Safeguards.