What Is Information Rights Management – Features And Limitations
IRM or information rights management is an IT security technology. It is used for protecting the intellectual properties from unauthorized accessing. As the DRM (Digital rights management) is applied to the mass-produced media like movies, songs etc., similarly the IRM is applied to the spreadsheets, presentations, and documents. This management rule technology keeps files safe from any unauthorized activity like file viewing, content copying, text printing, deleting, editing, and forwarding. To learn all the technical concepts associated with Information right management, first, it is mandatory to understand Digital rights management and its relation with IRM. One will also learn all the practices that users can adopt for cloud computing security via IRM and CASB solutions.
Overview Of DRM And Its Difference With IRM
Digital rights management relates to the cohort of technologies linked with access control. It is used to restrict editing, modifying, and editing of the copyrighted digital properties with the agreement of all terms and conditions. The basic aim of DRM is to protect the sensitive documents from being getting copied and shared without knowledge of the owner.
This DRM right is applied to the mass-produced media, which involves audio CDs, video games, Blue-ray discs, HD DVDs, and eBooks. It exists in form of scrambling, encryption, CD keys, digital watermarks, etc.
In the starting of this blog, it is mentioned that IRM is an application of Digital rights management for the files created by business users like Adobe PDFs, electronic mails, Microsoft Office documents, etc. The DRM is generally intended for the protection of copyrighted items but, Information rights management is purposely intended for the protection of strongly secretive content that is contained in a single document.
For example, a hospital might use IRM on the patient record for holding the compliance along with HIPAA-HITECH and also prevent the information access in an event where unauthorized access can occur. Another example for the same concept can be the time when an enterprise adopts IRM to the executive communication for the protection of sensitive information from being getting leaked in media or in hands of competitors.
Features Of Information Rights Management
In general, the IRM encrypts documents for enforcing access policies. When encryption gets completed, an additional layer of IRM can be applied to the files either to allow or deny upon particular activity. It means that the document can only be viewed by users but, its content cannot be copied or posted anywhere else. Also, the information rights management rule might restrict end users from taking screenshots or printout of the content.
It is also possible to create as well as customize the rules of IRM at the enterprise level, group level, user level, or departmental level. This will be completely based on the data compliance, security, and the requirements of governance.
One of the major advantages of using IRM is that it protects the file content even when the documents are in sharing mode with some other persons. Even if a person is working out from the company network then also he or she will be able to protect documents without any data breach risk. Well, all these statements say that the information rights management seals the file completely with not even a single point left for data leakage.
Information Rights Management Rule Limitations
One of the most common complaints with IRM approaches is that they force users to have a separate IRM application to be available and installed on machine. This is needed to open file under all the policies of IRM rules. This is the reason due to which IRM protection is limited only to documents or files, which need protection based upon the content.
It is true that IRM solves several security troubles at the time of document sharing. However, research says that there also simple measures that negate the IRM benefits. For example, a smartphone can take the image of file content through camera even after applying IRM protection.
How Microsoft Office 365 Supports IRM?
There is a popular IRM solution named as Microsoft AD Rights management. It is for the data that is stored on on-premises email systems. Talking about the Office 365 services then, it is having capabilities of IRM over the several products that are powered by Azure. It will be possible to transfer IRM policies from desktop to cloud services by synchronizing the Active directory with the Azure rights management server. Apart from the this, there exist three approaches through which one can use information rights management protection in Office 365 tenant:
- The account administrator can enable specific features of IRM, which will permit owners of SharePoint site to create and apply IRM rules in different lists or libraries. End users who will be uploading files in that libraries can be given assurance that document will be kept safe via IRM policies.
- The enterprises can configure the Microsoft Azure with updated services of IRM to add more granular control. This will enable administrators to generate the templates for individuals or groups of users policy. The basic advantage of using this feature is that it can be pushed to desktop Office software of the user or group.
- The above measures are based on the groups, users, and sites. They can be applied even to those files that do not need IRM protection. A CASB solution can be consolidated with Office 365 and information rights management rules, which in return will provide an advance and higher level of protection.
The cloud service providers apply all the best practices that they can afford to protect information in the cloud. But, it is not only their responsibilities! Customers should also take best practices to eliminate the chances of data breach and simultaneously grow business with trending technologies in a safe manner.
