Re: Identity Finder

["Peterman, Martin (mdp4s)" <mdp4s () VIRGINIA EDU>]

We have been using it for over 2 years.

We use both the PC and Mac versions.

We customize the installations for both.

My review and advice:

Create university policy first.
Have a good understanding of the proliferation and the use of the data you are hunting for.
Read the Identity Finder manual and understand how individual settings impact what is found in a scan.  Understanding 
how to govern false positives is important for the remediation of the report.
The product performance is topnotch.  The Mac version is a work in progress.
The customer service is unparalleled.  (It's great to see recommendations we made show up as features in the software.)

Overall, I would definitely buy this product again.

Contact me offline if you have more questions about our situation.

Have a great Friday,
Marty






Marty Peterman, CISSP
peterman () virginia edu<mailto:peterman () virginia edu>
Information Security Analyst
Information Security, Policy, and Records Office (ISPRO)
Office of the Vice President/CIO
University of Virginia, 2400 Old Ivy Rd.                 Phone  434.243.4909
Box 400898, Charlottesville, VA 22904-4898               Fax    434.243.9197
http://www.itc.virginia.edu/security/

From: The EDUCAUSE Security Constituent Group Listserv [mailto:SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU] On Behalf Of Richard 
A MacLaughlin
Sent: Thursday, December 17, 2009 4:00 PM
To: SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU
Subject: [SECURITY] Identity Finder

I am looking into products (or free utilities) that can scan for SSNs, credit card information, and anything else that 
would be considered sensitive.  Currently, we use Cornell Spider, but I'm looking for something more powerful and 
consistent.  It has been mentioned to me before to look into Identity Finder as a  potential solution and it looks 
promising, but I was wondering if any of you had any hands-on experience with Identity Finder or if you could recommend 
a better or different product?

I've contacted their sales department to give me some more information about specific questions I have, but I'll 
reiterate one question here in case any of you have hands-on experience.  It seems like the product is primarily geared 
toward Windows environments, so I'm wondering how successful (if at all) it is at finding any true positives when 
scanning file extensions that aren't native to Windows.  Of course, I'll reiterate that I'm definitely open-minded to 
other solutions beside Identity Finder if there is something better.

Thanks,

Richard A. MacLaughlin
Information Security
Valdosta State University
Phone:  (229) 333-5974