I'm sure you don't need to be reminded of the consequences when confidential or personal data gets loose from your organization. If pressure from government officials isn't enough incentive to install a data leak solution, your stockholders will give you ample reasons if news of a breach hits the press. Yet for any data protection system to be effective, it can't just scan e-mail or crawl file shares for suspici I’m sure you don’t need to be reminded of the consequences when confidential or personal data gets loose from your organization. If pressure from government officials isn’t enough incentive to install a data leak solution, your stockholders will give you ample reasons if news of a breach hits the press. Yet for any data protection system to be effective, it can’t just scan e-mail or crawl file shares for suspicious content – a point I’ve suggested before. That’s one reason why software agents are being added to the mix; they stop protected data from, say, being copied from laptops or desktops to removable media.Based on a recent vendor briefing, the new Reconnex 6.0 Endpoint Agent appears to protect this third area — data-in-use — more meticulously than other products I’ve seen. Like the competing products, there’s a central server (the iGuard appliance) which is con-trolled by Reconnex’s inSight centralized policy manager application. As I found in a past review of Reconnex iGuard, protection is comprehensive, including document fingerprinting that catches modified content and predefined policy sets covering most compliance regulations.Now, policies recognize special capabilities of Endpoint Agent. For example, rules pushed to the agent software will discover unauthorized activity involving any removable media (including FireWire and SCSI external drives, Bluetooth connections, and printers). Once detected, the Endpoint Agent warns the user, logs the threat, and blocks file transfer if the policy specifies this action.So far, so good – but competitive data leak products and agent solutions do much the same thing. With this 6.0 release, however, Reconnex seems to lead in preventing IP loss from public networks, such as WiFi hotspots or home networks. Put simply, the Endpoint Agent works like a baby iGuard when users are off the corporate LAN. For instance, if you are using Yahoo Mail while at your favorite Starbucks and try to send a restricted spreadsheet through their WiFi access point, the agent prevents the attempt. Importantly, Endpoint Agent reports all these actions to the central controller when you next connect to the corporate network. Incidents are later reviewed and analyzed with a detailed reporting system. In general, Reconnex does a great job of inspecting every port and communication channel for breaches, including e-mail, Webmail, and instant messaging. The system also prevents unauthorized file encryption, and within your network, Reconnex even ensures unmanaged devices are protected by scanning stored data or newly created files. Reconnex 6.0 Endpoint Agent Availability: End of April 2007 Pricing: Starts at $25,000 Verdict: Reconnex 6.0 Endpoint Agent broadens data leak prevention to enterprise end-points, including removable media and mobile devices — even if they are used on public networks. Beyond monitoring for leaks, the system educates users with warning messages and will block communications according to detailed policies. With these multiple actions and coverage of additional data exits, Reconnex seems to be one of the most complete data leak prevention solutions. Technology Industry