Qwest talks a different kind of mobility

The client software and tools can be used to enforce pre-set policies that alert the sender when a document contains social security numbers, account numbers or dollar amounts, Capurro said. The sender would then get an alert message, warning them that the email has sensitive information and, depending on the administrator’s choice, the sender has the option to send the email anyway or the email is automatically blocked.

Mobility is generally associated with wireless communications, but Qwest Communications today announced two new products in its Qwest Mobility suite of services that focus instead on business mobility – allowing workers to be both productive and secure no matter where they are working.

Qwest Comply and Qwest Teleworker services are aimed at businesses that want to support worker mobility but also protect their networks and business-critical data, said Martin Capurro, director of global product management at Qwest. Qwest Mobility creates a single point of administration for far-flung workers, including both road warriors and work-at-home employees, Capurro said.

“When we talk about mobility, we are talking about flexibility, productivity wherever you are working, and doing that in a secure way,” Capurro said. “Security has, historically, been very perimeter-based. We are trying to provide capabilities at the end user, at the end points as well.”

Qwest Comply is aimed at teleworkers who are using broadband connections to work from home. “It is agnostic to the underlying broadband,” Capurro said. “Of course, we can couple this with our own facilities.” Client software sits on the laptop and, in addition to providing basic security, is able to check and verify that all corporate policies are in compliance before a virtual private network connection to the corporate network is initiated, Capurro said.

“For a fairly low price point – less than $10 to $15 per user for most large companies as a starting place – we can make sure sensitive data isn’t emailed or leaked out,” Capurro said. This is accomplished by bringing newer technologies such as business correlation to bear in a practical way, he said.

“For example, we call get lots of documents and email,” Capurro said. “We can’t kid ourselves into thinking we read everything. How often do we send a contract or a list that might include sensitive information without having read everything? Things do get leaked out that way.”