deal room security

Secure Data & Deal Rooms

Secure Data Rooms, Dealroom Document Security & secure sharing


Protect PDF documents no matter where they reside:

  • Stop unauthorized access
  • Stop sharing and distribution
  • No useless passwords for users to enter or share

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  Do Secure Data Rooms & Secure Dealrooms provide much protection?

A secure data room may not be as secure as you think for document protection

When using a traditional cloud-based secure data room or secure deal room you need to understand what security they actually provide:

  1. If users can share their login information (username and password) that is required to access your secure documents then it means other unauthorized users can access them.
  2. If you have to upload unprotected documents to a cloud server then who has access to them?  What happens if their is a failure in the document protection process?
  3. If you allow users to print documents then they can print directly to file drivers (e.g. a PDF printer) rather than a physical printer.  This removes the protection from the document.
  4. Users can use screen grabber tools to produce high-quality screenshots of protected documents.
  5. Many secure deal room systems decrypt content on the server and serve it to the client – that means content is exposed in its unprotected form on a cloud server where it could be easily attacked.
  6. Browser based viewers are easy to manipulate with script injections and plugins which can remove the security controls.

Secure deal rooms therefore may not provide the levels of document security you think they do.  See also Is dataroom security adequate for secure document sharing?

  How DRM security can create a secure data room / secure dealroom

What is a virtual data room or dealroom?

Although the two terms deal room and data room may seem very different – a deal room is something used in mergers and acquisitions and a data room is somewhere you put private data that you want to share in a controlled manner – it turns out that are really very similar.

A data room or data rooms are used to securely share information that is confidential – due diligence documents for auditors or regulators, for instance.  Data rooms are also used to provide confidential information to partners and contractors but you do not want them to be able to pass them on.  Where these are hosted on the Internet they can be referred to as Virtual data rooms or v-rooms (presumably now we have cloud computing there will be a virtual cloud data room or vc-room).

So a data room may be internal or external.  The users of the data rooms may be any that are authorized.  Authorization to use data rooms is usually granted by the owner of the data in the data room, although in some instances it may be a third party such as a law firm or a firm of contracts administrators.

On the other hand. deal rooms or dealing rooms are much favored by lawyers.  A dealing room is, literally, where a deal is put together.  So in a dealing room you would expect to find sensitive documents that are being shared, probably on a time limited basis, with very specific groups of people who must not be able to take them away from the dealing room.  Documents in a dealing room include due diligence reports (usually from accountants or market analysts) and draft bidding documents.

The special characteristic of file security in a deal room is that they have a definable ‘life’ being available to bidders, and that life must be extensible.  In both cases it must be possible to ensure that only authorized users may access the content of files, and use may need to be logged.

Previously access control systems have been used for data rooms and dealing rooms, but they have not proved adequate in preventing users from taking copies of documents.  DRM controls are needed to deliver a properly secure data room or secure deal room.  Using DRM to secure a virtual data room means that you can prevent people from making unauthorized copies of documents (most things in a deal room are confidential) or from saving them and then forwarding on.  DRM controls can also add watermarks identifying the user of the data room or the dealing room, which will dissuade them from taking photos of the screen (for instance).

DRM SECURITY ARTICLES
Internal Document Control
External Document Control
Content Control
Content Management
Information Control
Document Security
DRM Document Control
Document Watermarking
Secure Document sharing
Deal room & Data room security
Blueprint Documentation Security
Revoke Document Access
Restrict Document Access
Data Security & Data Protection
Self Extracting Exe Files
Stop document copying
Sharepoint document security
DOCUMENT SECURITY
Security Learning Center
Document Security Papers
Information Security Glossary
Regulatory Compliance
Intellectual Property Theft

Secure Datarooms with Locklizard document DRM security

Secure document sharing without passwords

With Locklizard document DRM software you can create your own secure data room / secure dealing room in which you can control document access and usage.  Control what users can do with your documents (copy, print, etc.), when they can no longer be viewed (expire), and instantly revoke them as and when required.

For accountability purposes, you can add dynamic watermarks (username, company, date/time stamp) that are applied when your documents are viewed and/or printed, and audit document views and prints.  Locklizard DRM software provides secure deal room / secure data room document sharing with document management, statistics, copy protection, and copy control.

  • No login credentials for users to share

    Users never enter any credentials so they cannot be shared along with access to your documents.

    Decryption keys are transparently and securely relayed to an encrypted client keystore which is locked to the user’s device.

  • No uploading of unprotected documents

    Unprotected documents don’t leave your computer so they can never be compromised.

    Protect documents on your local computer and distribute them by web, email, usb, etc.

  • Lock documents to locations

    You can make sure users can only open documents from a specific office location (e.g. the office) to control BYOD use.

    You can also restrict or allow access to specific countries.

    Locklizard automatically captures location specific information so you don’t have to enter it.

  • Stop screen grabbing & printing to PDF files

    Stop print screen & third party screen grabbing tools capturing your documents.

    If you allow printing then Locklizard automatically prevents printing documents to PDF and other file formats.

  • Non-removable watermarks

    Add custom text and image watermarks and dynamic watermarks to identify users.  Add confidential watermarks knowing they cannot be easily removed.

    Unlike watermarks you add in Word, Adobe, or other Office and PDF applications, Locklizard watermarks cannot be easily edited and removed.  Not only do we prevent editing of protected PDF files, but we even stop users taking screenshots with screen grabbing software so watermarks cannot be quickly removed in Photo editing applications.

  • Faster Document Loading

    Web browsers by their very nature are slow.  Large documents take time to download and render (display).

    An installed Viewer can significantly increase the user experience with faster document loading, scrolling and searching.

  • Offline Use

    Unlike cloud based secure data rooms users where need to be online to view your documents, Locklizard lets you decide whether users have to be connected to the Internet or not.

    DRM controls are part of the document so documents are persistently protected regardless of Internet connectivity, or where they are located.

    Users can also use our offline zero installation USB solution (documents viewed directly from USB sticks) without ever having to connect to the Internet.  USB sticks can be pre-loaded with a Viewer, documents, and keystore for total offline viewing.  Documents are locked to the USB stick so they cannot be copied to other USB sticks or devices.

     

  • No insecure technology

    1. We don’t use passwords, plugins, or JavaScript in our installed Viewers since they provide only weak security at best, and at worst compromise the security of systems.

    2. Our installed Viewers provide total control over the Operating System environment.  They are self-contained applications and cannot be bypassed by plugins or scripts.

    3. We don’t force uses to turn off security controls in their native applications – many cloud document sharing sites force users to do this in order to view protected documents offline.  This has serious legal implications – what happens if a users system is attacked because of this?

Locklizard provides superior document protection over secure data rooms / secure dealing room enabling you to securely share documents with others while retaining full control over their use.

  Cost to set up a data room

Create a data room for significantly less cost with our Document DRM software

The cost to set up a data room can be expensive.  If you use a typical data room solution for 3 years then you are spending at least $18,000 (based on a $500 a month fee).

Locklizard provide cost effective document security enabling you to create a data room at a fraction of the cost:

  • Perpetual licenses save thousands
  • Host on-premise in your own environment or use our ready-to-go AWS hosted systems.

So not only are our document security solutions more secure than virtual datarooms, they can save you thousands as well.

See our customer testimonials or read our case studies to see why thousands of organizations use Locklizard to create a data room for secure document sharing.

Customer Testimonials