Proprietary Risk

Dec 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By Stephanie Silk

Classified information is usually thought of as names of undercover agents, government secrets or law enforcement records. But one unlikely secret bank of information is a crucial one — diamonds and their whereabouts. The De Beers Group is one of the world's most renowned diamond mining companies, and when working to find such a valuable resource, secure data is paramount.

De Beers Canada is opening its first diamond mine in the Northwest Territories of Canada and is investing $1 billion in the construction of Ontario's first diamond mine, due to start production in early 2008. Together, these two projects will increase Canadian diamond output by 40 percent.

As a part of a new security initiative to help protect the data contained on the company's notebook computers across Canada, De Beers Canada and its IT team opted for software that could protect not only their hardware, but also the crucial data held on each computer. Cherian Thomas, assistant administrator for De Beers Canada, is in charge of evaluating, testing and implementing the software. “We need to ensure that if our computers are lost, stolen or missing, there is a method by which we can assure our management team that the data is safe,” he says. “In the mining industry, our laptops could have been logging data from geologists in the field saying that this particular area has a high probability of a viable diamond deposit.”

Though De Beers Canada had not had a previous problem with losing data, its goal with a new security directive was to mitigate a problem before it started. So Thomas and the IT team approached several computer security companies, and after learning that Dell provides a program from Absolute Software called ComputraceComplete, they made their decision. “We wanted a solution that was quick to implement and easy to support and manage. Plus, I was happy that there were major vendors on board with the product,” Thomas says.

ComputraceComplete Computer Theft Recovery, Data Protection and Secure Asset Tracking software provides remote data deletion for companies such as De Beers that need to track not only company-wide hardware, but the data contained on those machines. It is in compliance with privacy regulations set out by the U.S. Department of Defense.

“In situations of loss or theft, we can remotely delete the information, report back that it was deleted and they are then comfortable with the loss of their computer,” says Ben Haidri, vice president of business development for Absolute Software, headquartered in Vancouver.

After installing the software, a backend server communicates with the client by landline, Internet or other connection, and makes a call each day to the monitoring center to communicate that things are either working as planned or that a computer is not where it is supposed to be. If the situation is computed as normal, the server will check back in 24 hours. A company can also change that time and have it checked on, for example, every 15 minutes.

Haidri says that De Beers Canada is a classic situation of a company in need of remote data deletion because of the effect that speculation about a mineral deposit - whether right or wrong - can have on a company's stock. “De Beers has very sensitive data in geographically challenging areas. The liability that comes along with losing a laptop is very high,” he says.

Thomas agrees. “When we're exploring for diamonds, we invest millions of dollars to get that data and help us find a deposit. It's there with you on your laptop, and if it falls into wrong hands, that data could be sold on black markets,” he says.

ComputraceComplete also tracks a computer's whereabouts with a secure asset tracking device, so after deletion, it becomes the goal to find the hardware and determine why and how it went missing. “When a notebook goes missing, the company wants to know where it is, even if they have deleted the information, because theft is usually internal and you want to make sure your own employee didn't take it,” Haidri says.

Once a missing laptop is tracked, a recovery team at Absolute Software will dispatch local police in the area of the lost or stolen computer. But according to Thomas, De Beers Canada hasn't had to use that feature yet.

The importance of software versus hardware is something that De Beers Canada faces each day, and Thomas says that, although some in management might not be willing to spend more money on “invisible” software than on visible hardware, his managers felt the opposite. “The computer itself is only worth $2,500. It can be hard to convince management to spend more than that [on software], but De Beers Canada is forward-thinking, spending money on a solution without seeing results in the same day,” he says.

After a successful rollout test bid to 10 people, it took De Beers Canada two to three months to set it up on all its laptops across Canada, affecting about 250 users. It has been in place for six to seven months, and when De Beers Canada orders a new computer, Dell puts ComputraceComplete on the computer automatically.

De Beers Canada has also set up predefined policies on its account, which any company can do to predetermine what actions Absolute Software will take in specific situations. “The policies can include something as simple as ‘delete this specific file’ or ‘delete any file of this type’ or ‘delete anything from this date,’ or even ‘delete everything including the operating system’,” Haidri says. “The ability to audit the results is what De Beers Canada liked.”

The ease-of-use and decreased workload brings assurance to Thomas and his co-workers. “When I go to purchase a laptop, I can be guaranteed that it's part of the build, giving me peace of mind. It's also peace of mind for our tech support because there is no babysitting they have to do. It brings no additional workload to our help desk, requires no additional hires, and to a lesser extent, no one's responsibility has increased,” he says.

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© 2008 Penton Media Inc.

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