We’ve added an amazing new security feature to Gears this week – Session Shield! This brand new feature creates a secure session in which all data created or edited while running Session Shield is cleared upon exit. Session Shield provides an effective method to securely access your data and prevent data leakage from your organization.
Session Shield will be accessible via the new application version of Gears, to provide anonymous and secure browsing on a per use basis. For those with licensed Gears accounts, you will have greater controls via the Configuration console. We have added a new section under the Protection tab – Privacy and Data Leak Prevention. Within this section, Gears provides the ability to configure custom actions inside Session Shield that ensure that the data within your organization remains secure and private. Session Shield provides a secure environment for accessing sensitive or confidential data and where the user will be unable to copy or export data from the secure session.
The Gears cloud console offers administrators the ability to use an OPSWAT provided proxy or their own within Session Shield. You can also customize if a secure session can be launched if a device is infected or non-compliant, when to automatically quit a secure session, and limit the use of peripheral devices (i.e. USB drives, network share, and printers) during a secure session.
Using Session Shield with a defined proxy allows you to establish a specific IP address that users must come from in order to access specific sites (i.e. Salesforce) to ensure that access to corporate data is secure and non-transferable. The proxy capability is currently limited to Windows XP and 7, but is expected to expand quickly to Windows 8 and OSX.
Over the past few weeks, Gears has also expanded support for security applications (powered by the OESIS Framework) to include new versions from Kaspersky Lab and Tech Guard Technologies; as well as new versions of backup software from SkyDrive (Store) and CrashPlan. As always, you can find a complete list of supported applications here.
