With over 430,000 members, EBS is one of Ireland's leading building societies. It wanted to secure confidential member data on PCs and laptops used by its 600 staff, for regulatory compliance and to avoid the risk of reputation damage.

EBS' IT team had also seen an increase in the amount of malware on its machines, associated with the recent increase in worms exploiting the Windows Autorun capability to spread via infected removable storage devices. EBS wanted to retain the flexibility of using removable media, with the assurance of strong, policy-led security and visibility of the data being accessed.

"For EBS it was crucial to deploy a solution that could strongly and efficiently address the threat of unauthorised copying of enterprise data to personal storage devices and removable media", said David Cahill, EBS Information Security Officer.

The company evaluated Check Point Media Encryption on the recommendation of its security partner, Calyx, and following a successful pilot deployed 600 Check Point Media Encryption licenses on its PCs and laptops. The solution was chosen for its full control over usage of USB ports, devices and media drives, its automated encryption and centralised management.

"With the Check Point solution, we have addressed the issue of unauthorised copying, ensured our compliance objectives are met, and are now able to run complete audits of the usage of all devices, which is very important for any financial organisation," said David Cahill.

EBS' deployment plan was divided into three phases: restricting authorised users' access to USB ports; creation of an encryption policy and prohibition of use of all non-EBS USB keys; and production of monthly reports detailing the most active USB users, with an overview of file and data usage.

David Cahill added: "By deploying this solution we have gained other crucial benefits such as system integrity, virus prevention, real ttion, real time logging and automated alerts. Also, the solution's encryption features have provided EBS with appropriate protection for confidential data at rest, which was of course one of the main drivers for researching this type of solution in the first place."

Juliette Sultan, head of Global Marketing for Check Point said: "Organisations don't want to ban the use of removable storage media, but they do want to control it and ensure that it doesn't become a vector for data losses. Check Point encryption products automate the security process and give businesses complete, easy-to-manage solutions to protect all sensitive data, whether at rest or in motion."

Check Point Media Encryption secures sensitive corporate data and blocks incoming malware by encrypting removable media such as USB storage devices, CDs and DVDs and controlling activity (read, write and execute) on ports and devices. All device content is automatically encrypted in background, transparently to end-users.

Unique to Check Point, users can access encrypted media securely on unmanaged computers with no client installation. This plugs potential leakage points and logs data movement to and from any plug and play devices, providing comprehensive control of security policies. As the only device and port control solution integrated with a single endpoint security agent, Check Point Media Encryption simplifies compliance and reduces administrative overhead.

Check Point data security products support more end-user platforms than any other solutions in the industry, from Windows, Linux and Mac OS based laptops to Symbian, Windows Mobile, Palm and PocketPC based smartphones and PDAs.