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Identity Finder DLP Endpoint searches your computer for sensitive information — and provides options for protecting it.
Keeping your identity and other sensitive information about yourself secure can be difficult. It seems like every time you turn around you leave some vital info in a Web form or an e-mail.
True, most of us are very careful to avoid potentially dangerous activities, such as giving out credit card information in unsecured e-mails. However, almost all of us store numerous passwords in cookies via Web browsers simply for the convenience of not having to type them in every time. Most of the time, using cookies is safe, but if your computer is unattended for any length of time, the level of safety is lowered.
Identity Finder DLP Endpoint does exactly what its name implies: It searches your computer for the types of information you specify and lets you know exactly what it found. It is available for both Windows-based systems and Mac OS computers.
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We found the install of Identity Finder to be rather painless. Once we had it up and running on one of our lab computers, we did a scan for many types of data, such as passwords, phone numbers, addresses and credit card numbers. The computer in question had been used in the past for many Web-based tests and Internet research sessions, as well as past reviews of extrusion prevention devices, so it was a good candidate for this kind of search.
Even though we have tried to keep this machine pretty clean, we were amazed to see that Identity Finder had found 1,532 locations where sensitive data was stored, which contained a total of 8,511 items. There were 434 places where passwords were stored, alone. The majority of the rest were in files that were specifically placed on that computer to test products like this, but it is entirely possible that a heavily used computer would have a similar level of sensitive information within it.
For each item on the list, we had many choices of what to do about it. We could scrub it — in other words, delete it according to the the Defense Department's 5220-22M standard for deleting files. We also had the option of scrubbing the specific data while keeping the rest of the file intact. Several other options included putting it quarantine, sending it to the recycle bin (not recommended) and ignoring it. The program will gray out the options that are not usable for that particular file.
Password vault
Going through the list to find a particular item can be a bit ponderous. However, there are filters that allowed us to see only those of a certain type or ones containing a specific string of characters. Using these helped us to track down the individual pieces of information that we were interested in, once we got accustomed to using the filters.
We were pleased to find that Identity Finder offers a way to keep passwords secure with the Password Vault. This is a way to keep all of your password information in one secure place. Once we selected the password items we wanted to add, we simply right-clicked and selected “Add to Vault.” After that they showed up in the Password Vault windows that we got to from the Tools menu. Then we could access any of those with a single master password.
In addition to saving the list of data as a secure Identity Finder file, we had the option of saving it as either an HTML or CSV file. Of course, since both of these file types consist of unencrypted text, the list of sensitive data it contains would pose a large risk if the file were viewed by anyone who was not supposed to see it. Fortunately, when these file types are selected Identity Finder warns you of just this danger before saving.
The pricing scheme for Identity Finder is highly flexible. For a single-copy license for one desktop computer, the price is $19. There are many price points for this, up to $7 each for 25,000 or more. The also have a server version with its own price points, and a site license model that is based on the total number of employees. Whichever one you pick, government organizations will save 20 percent on average. We feel this is a good price no matter which way you decide to go with it.
In the battle to keep sensitive data secure, Identity Finder DLP Endpoint would be a good weapon to have in any network administrator’s arsenal.
Identity Finder, www.identityfinder.com