Less than a year after Microsoft bought Israeli data security company Secure Islands to enhance the classification capabilities of Office 365 and Windows, the acquisition is finally bearing fruit, as the company is releasing public preview of its Azure Information Protection service, reports MSPoweruser.
Announced last month, Azure Information Protection is a combination of Secure Islands’ technology and Microsoft’s own Azure Rights Management Service (Azure RMS) to help organizations better control sensitive information that travels outside of their networks, using an employee identity-driven approach. Specifically, the new service will help companies protect employee identity data, define how they can classify sensitive documents and emails, track where they go, and more. This is similar to another of Microsoft’s product, Enterprise Mobility Suite, which provides apps and data access to employees in an organization securely wherever they are.
Data security has always been a burning concern for companies as cloud computing and big data continues their advances, and is a bigger problem than ever currently with breaches affecting from big corporations to even governments. Microsoft’s effort in security, like with Azure Information Protection, should therefore attract a lot of interested parties. If you’re one of them, head to the service’s homepage to find out more, or directly to the download page to try out the preview.
