This session covered some new cool features of RMS when combined with Windows Server 2008 R2 and Exchange 2010. Some of the new features include:
– AD RMS bulk protection tool. This tool can bulk encrypt and decrypt Microsoft Office files and attachments within PSTs. The tool can be extended to other file formats (like PDF) with third party IRM protectors. For example, FoxIt makes a PDF protector.
– Windows Server 2008 R2 has a new feature called the File Classification Infrastructure (FCI). This service is highly customizable and searches file contents and can perform almost any action, including protecting a file with RMS. For example, you can setup a regular expression to search for credit card number looking strings and automatically apply a policy. If you want near real-time protection, see this blog post. Titus labs has some additional FCI add-ons you can find here.
– RMS can now be deployed and managed by PowerShell.
– The presenter covered several Exchange 2010 integration points, nearly all of which I’ve covered in other blogs this week. A few that I didn’t mention was the ability to mark a voice mail as private, which prevents you from forwarding it to anyone else. RMS integration with OWA supports IE, FireFox, Safari and Chrome. Exchange 2010 SP1 will provide the ability to preview RMS protected attachments in OWA. There are also enhancements with cross premises IRM support for Exchange online and the Microsoft Federation Gateway.
– The next version of Mac Office (probably 2011) will provide full support for RMS protected documents, templates , and emails. No firm release date, but probably next year.
– The speaker also mentioned a company, Gigatrust, which enhances RMS to support additional file types.
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The most powerful features of RMS on Server 2008 R2 is the file classification tool. Microsoft has partnered with RSA to provide a RMS integration solution for data loss prevention (DLP). See more information here.
If you are tired of the constant security problems with Adobe Reader and Acrobat, I was very pleased to hear Foxit has full RMS support via their PDF Security Suite. Personally I’m tired of the Adobe bloat, nearly weekly security problems with their products, and very poor cumulative patching mechanism.
