Metadata Leaks: Microsoft Products
Many electronically transmitted documents unwittingly disclose confidential information to adversaries, unauthorized parties and data thieves through release of unscrubbed metadata.
Metadata, information that characterizes data being transmitted, is typically used to track document changes, names of authors, dates created and last printed, et al. When transmitted to outside parties, unscrubbed metadata can create confidentiality breaches and protocol violations.
In legal circles, metadata leaks have led to lost business and lost cases because information wasn’t properly scrubbed before transmitting it to court, clients or opposing counsel. And, you can’t blame the recipient for reviewing and using metadata for their benefit. According to the Colorado Bar Association, “There is nothing inherently deceitful or surreptitious about searching for metadata. A sending Lawyer has an ethical duty to take steps to reduce the likelihood that metadata containing confidential information would be included in an electronic document transmitted to a third party.” Source: Formal Opinion 119: Disclosure, Review, and Use of Metadata (adopted May 17, 2008).
While such metadata scrubbers as Microsoft’s Document Inspector help, usually a third party metadata solution is mandated for optimum performance.
The free one-hour December 17 webinar entitled, “What do your documents know about you?” will discuss metadata problems and solutions provided by iscrub. This third-party application thoroughly and reliably scrubs Microsoft Office metadata before electronic transmission to help avoid Metadata leaks.
A website description of iScrub notes that it “uses sophisticated technologies to remove the visible document properties and scrubs the difficult to reach file elements, such as the list of past authors (all document authors) and Deleted Text. iScrub provides a centralized administration feature that allows firms to establish and control the metadata removal settings. iScrub publishes the clean version of a document, separate from the original file, inside or outside of a document management system. iScrub with Outlook, Lotus Notes and GroupWise [prompts] users to manage metadata in e-mail attachments before sending them.”
For more information on the webinar and to register, click here.
Tags: iscrub, metadata scrubber, metadata scrubbing, unscrubbed metadata
