Trend Micro has released LeakProof 3.0, the security vendor's first data leak prevention product.

Back in October, Trend Micro acquired US-based Provilla for its data-leak prevention product known as LeakProof. Trend says that the latest version of LeakProof "educates and interacts with endpoint users so that data leaks and security threats are prevented."

With most data leaks occurring due to internal staff, a number of remedies have appeared, including installing spyware on the PCs to monitor employee actions. Trend's LeakProof however allows IT managers to define content-sensitive dialog boxes that appear directly onto an employee's computer screen.

Trend hopes these alert boxes "educate" employees on the appropriate handling of confidential information, raise awareness of security issues and enlist their support in preventing data from "walking out of the door."

Administrators can customize the alert dialog box when a violation occurs, to explain to the end-user what type of action is occurring, why it is occurring and where to go (using a URL link) for more detailed information. LeakProof 3.0 also gives administrators the option to require authorized employees to encrypt data first (before taking it out of the network) by using LeakProof's built-in encryption facility. The product is compatible with other enterprise encryption solutions.

Employees can also be required to justify their actions, before allowing them to perform certain actions with sensitive data.

"Companies need to have an offensive strategy when it comes to preventing security threats and data leaks," said Glen Kosaka, director of marketing for Trend Micro's data leak prevention business unit. "People need to know how they might be compromising their company's data by the actions they take such as transferring files onto a USB drive to take out of the office."

"LeakProof is eminently scalable," said Peter Harris, product marketing manager speaking to Techworld. "It sits on the end-point device (ie workstation or laptop), and monitors all I/O activity. If you put a document on a memory stick, or email it, or print it, the system will know and prevent it."

"LeakProof can apply three different checks for documents. It checks the document itself looking for keywords (word filtering). It also scans for regular expressions, such as credit card numbers etc," Harris said. "In addition, LeakProof allows users to submit sensitive documents for analysis by a LeakProof server. This produces a DNA database fingerprint for that document. The interesting thing is that you can edit the document, and the fingerprint will most probably still match after editing."

"Patterns are pushed to each client (each workstation or laptop)," Harris added. "Therefore the laptop can leave the corporate network and the document is still protected."

"The fact that LeakProof is an end-point product allows it to work outside the network, and means it is eminently scalable."

Other enhancements in Trend Micro LeakProof 3.0 include a new dashboard that summarizes real-time events and provides real-time insight into enterprise-wide activity. The administrative workflow for data classification, policy management, monitoring and reporting has also been 'optimized.'

There is also a new scan-only version of the LeakProof Anti-Leak Agent that enables enterprises to scan endpoints, including servers, for sensitive information. It also assesses the risk of data leaks before deployment of full data-in-use or data-in-motion real-time enforcement.

It is compatible with Windows Vista, Office 2007 and Yahoo Messenger, and Trend says that it has more flexible and granular policies that enables mobile and disconnected systems to have different policy actions taken when a violation is detected while the employee is offline.

Print-Screen (PrtSc) can also be blocked, preventing the capturing and disseminating of unauthorized screen shots of sensitive diagrams and other data. There is also a configurable PC/LAN boundary filtering.

Trend Micro LeakProof 3.0 is available now, but pricing is still under discussion.