The Finer Points of Document Security

Data security breaches are more common than ever before. Every year, there are data ransom horror stories across the commercial and public sector. For example, in the first half of 2022 the healthcare sector suffered 337 breaches costing an average $10.1 million per breach! In the corporate world, some of the largest security breaches of 2022 included big brands like Uber, Plex, Red Cross, News Corp, T-Mobile, Toyota, and many many others.

IT and Security Managers rely on cybersecurity tools to build an iron-clad armor around the organization’s sensitive data. However, 77% of organizations identified employees as the chip in that armor when it came to maintaining data and network security (CloudEntr, 2015). Unfortunately, even the market’s most robust data security platforms cannot always prevent dangerous employee activity.

In addition to data breaches, enterprise IT security teams must also manage compliance with several regulations relating to data storage, such as Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) and the Fair Credit Reporting Act in financial sector, Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) in health sector, Sarbanes-Oxley for all public companies, to name a few. Managing data compliance and security breaches is an uphill battle for many companies, even those with bigger IT budgets. As recently as this September, 16 Wall Street firms were charged with widespread record-keeping failures totaling $1.1 Billion.

Data security and regulatory compliance go hand in hand: as we continue to evolve the ways we interact and share data in the digital world, so do the regulations surrounding our privacy and sensitive data. Through it all, IT Managers are faced with implementing continuously changing compliance programs to help manage both.

A successful compliance program will heavily rely on automation to standardize compliance across the organization. They will also have a multi-pronged approach to handling global system/network security as well as additional role-based access control at server, folder, and document levels.

The deets on document security

Document-based security - this is where we have plenty of experience. In fact, 20+ years of it!

First things first, securing your data starts by cleaning up your unstructured content. How can you secure sensitive data if you don’t know which documents contain it?

Second, implement a document-based security policy.

Here is a quick 4-step guide to help you with that:

1. Identify security level structure within your organization: role-based, department-based, etc.
2. Develop internal policies that outline enforcement and non-compliance implications.
3. Set clear confidentiality structure and what security each level must have.
4. Outline framework to sharing documentation with external parties, i.e. how it should be done if at all.

Here is how Adlib can help you add security to each of your enterprise documents, meet data storage compliance requirements and prevent a data confidentiality breach:

1. Digitize and OCR each doc for 100% searchability factor.
Adlib Transform discovers and ingests virtually any type of document from your multiple content management systems across your entire organization. Next, using the Optical Character Recognition engine, it converts all text within the document (even in images) to 100% searchable content.

2. Automate application of Adobe PDF security features to all company documents.
Adobe PDF format comes with several built-in security features, such as encryption certificate, password protection, copy/print prevention and more. Adlib Transform allows you to automatically apply these features to your documents in bulk. 
a. Encryption
In the Adlib Transform rules engine, you can assign full or partial encryption complete with a digital ID to specific document sets based on confidentiality levels.
b. Password protection
Adlib Transform can auto-apply Open and/or Master/Owner password to specific document sets, which can be the same for each document set or a dynamic value based on specific metadata variables. Additional customization* allows you to create a time-based rule to regularly scan specific folder and update the passwords on all documents within.
c. Editing and Manipulation Prevention
Adobe PDF’s Master/Owner password can restrict editing content, adding/moving/deleting pages, and print settings. Adlib Transform automates adding these settings in bulk to specific document sets.

3. Capture, transform, protect and output files into an existing secure Enterprise Document Repository in a firewall-protected environment.

Adlib Transform offers a robust rules engine that enables organizations to create complex instructions for formatting, merging, splitting, adding document security settings - all based on document types, classes and confidentiality levels. This also applies to output folders. Once the transformation job is complete, Adlib Transform will output the final protected PDF into a specific folder, i.e. all Top Secret documents can be encrypted with a password and saved in a role-based accessible folder in a Content System of your choice, while all-access documents can be sorted into the all-employee accessible folder.

The Final Word

When it comes to structuring, digitizing and protecting the data inside your enterprise documents, we are the experts. We regularly review record-keeping regulations to ensure that our platform meets all the requirements. Our customers in Life Sciences, Insurance, Financial Services, Energy and Government can rest assured that their organizations are in compliance while their customer, employee and partner data is safe with Adlib. Speak to our Digital Document Experts about cleaning up and securing your data.