AMES, Iowa, Nov. 14, 2005 -- Dr. Doug Jacobson, founder and chief technology officer of Palisade Systems, a leading supplier of content security appliances, today announced the following top ten tips for businesses to protect customer's sensitive data from malicious employees. According to analyst firm, Gartner Group, over 70 percent of unauthorized access to data is committed by employees and a 2004 CSI/FBI survey found that internal threats comprise half of security incidents, and account for the largest overall losses. Furthermore, less than 5 percent of businesses currently deploy technology specifically designed to identify and eliminate the unauthorized sending of private content outside their network.

Top Ten Tips for Protecting Sensitive Data From Malicious Employees

1) Know what data is being collected on your customers and the reasons for collecting it.

2) Understand what private customer information employees have access to.

3) Understand how employees can send customer data outside your company -- through the network, laptops, PDAs, backup transport.

4) Develop policies for the appropriate handling, use, and securing of customer data and make sure every employee understand what data is private.

5) Educate your employees on how to properly handle private data as well as how to keep their computers free of security threats, such as worms and spyware.

6) Be sure to communicate your company's procedures and processes for protecting confidential data to your clients.

7) Hire a third party to perform an annual audit of your security practices. Through penetration tests your company will better understand how adequately protected you are with your existing network security infrastructure.

8) Adopt a multi-layered security strategy to protect private data. The strategy should include solutions to enforce access controls on information and provide private content protection.

9) Track where your customers' sensitive data is being sent to. Consider purchasing technology designed to make sure that sensitive data is being sent to the correct IP address by an employee.

10) Encrypt data if customer information is being transmitted or stored on a network.

More information about how to protect consumers' sensitive data can be retrieved from the Federal Trade Commission by clicking on the following URL: http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/buspubs/safeguards.htm.

About Dr. Jacobson

Last month, Dr. Jacobson was awarded the "Meet the Challenge" award from the Federal Bureau of Investigation's InfraGard program. Besides Dr. Jacobson's role at Palisade Systems, he also serves in several other capacities outside of the company including an associate professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Iowa State University, the director of the Iowa State University Information Assurance Center, which has been recognized by the National Security Agency as a charter Center of Academic Excellence for Information Assurance Education. He is also the director and founder of the Internet-Scale Event and Attack Generation Environment (ISEAGE), a U.S. Department of Justice funded test lab designed to simulate, investigate and recreate the largest cyber attacks over the Internet.

Dr. Jacobson works with local law enforcement and is a computer forensics analyst for the Iowa State University Police department. Dr. Jacobson received two R&D 100 awards for his security technology and has been credited with two patents in the area of computer security. His latest project is the formation of the Center for Information Protection. Sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF), it's the first NSF Industry/University Cooperative Research Center to coordinate information security research efforts between businesses, universities and government institutions.

About Palisade Systems, Inc.

Founded in 1996, Palisade Systems, Inc., offers a family of network security appliances that help organizations proactively analyze network activity, enforce network access rules and protect intellectual property. The appliances manage network traffic to maximize efficiency and protect critical network assets against a variety of threats ranging from benign utilization issues to malicious attacks. All Palisade appliances are easy to install and configure, and allow simple policy-based customization. PacketSure(TM) manages network applications, protocols, and protects content, PacketGuard(TM) controls internal network access, and ScreenDoor(TM) filters Internet web sites. Palisade's products are used in hundreds of businesses, schools, universities and government organizations throughout the world. For more information, please visit http://www.palisadesys.com or contact Palisade's sales department at 1.888.824.0720.

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