What’s new in Safetica 7.3

Safetica 7.3 builds on the Safetica 7 platform and brings further enhancements. This version focuses on reducing cost and time to deployment by optimizing frequent tasks and server performance, as well as improving the user experience.

The most important new features in this version are:

• Brand new DLP endpoint notifications

• Improved performance and reduced backup size in Safetica Server

• New configuration presets for Auditor, Supervisor and DLP in the configuration wizard

• Productivity features now include support for non-working hours

• Enhanced data protection for emails (MS Outlook only)

• New approach to updating old Safetica clients (6.1 and older)

• New WebSafetica features and design

Tip: You can find the full change log at the end of this article.

Note: Please visit article Message "OS not compatible" when installing Safetica on endpoints in case you see this message when installing Safetica 7.3 or updating from a previous version.

New DLP notifications on endpoints

If you are using DLP rules to protect sensitive data, the first thing you’ll notice after updating your clients to version 7.3 are the new DLP notifications shown to end users. We have collected user feedback and worked hard over the last few months to completely redesign the user notifications. The new design is modern, less obstructive and easier to understand and interact with.

This change includes a range of notifications, spanning from restrictions that are triggered when a protected document or application is opened to restrictive popups and dialogues that provide users with detailed information about a restriction. All notifications now also include the name of the category that was applied to the application or file, making it easy to understand the reason for the restriction.
Lastly, the new notifications are less demanding and require fewer system resources. This is especially important when using Safetica on terminal servers. Now users are more informed on security policies and experience greater transparency, all while improving the effectiveness of the DLP solution and boosting your data security.

Improved performance and reduced size of backups

We have been hard at work on the server side, too. Safetica 7.3 now contains optimized backup logic that reduces the size of database backups by up to 80%. This was achieved by omitting data such as database indexes from the backup. We were able to do this because this data is now calculated automatically upon restore.

The biggest improvement in Safetica Server will be immediately visible to those who run a network with a hundred or more clients. The communication between the client and the server, as well as the logic of processing requests on the server, was heavily optimized. This results in lower server load and increased capacity with the existing configuration. In other words, your server will no longer struggle and will be able to serve more clients faster than ever.

To take full advantage of this configuration, don’t forget to switch your Safetica Client communication mode to Access via Safetica Server under Safetica Console - Maintenance – Client settings – Other settings – Endpoint database connection. New installations have this enabled by default.

Note: In case your Safetica Management Server runs on a different machine than your SQL database, the network and processing load will be transferred to the machine with Safetica Management Server.

New presets in the configuration wizard

The configuration wizard available after 1^st installation of Safetica was introduced in Safetica 7.1. In 7.3 we’ve added more presets to make it easier for you to use Safetica out-of-the-box. The new presets are:

Monitoring

• Basic – monitors applications, websites, devices and printers

• Advanced – also monitors emails, files and network traffic

Application Control

• Basic – blocks dangerous applications such as keyloggers

• Advanced – blocks applications that are run from external devices as well as potentially dangerous applications (file synchronization, virtualization, etc.)

Web Control

• Basic – blocks dangerous websites, such as malware, games and pornography

• Advanced – also blocks unproductive categories (news, shopping, etc.)

DLP

• Blocks cloud drives, unused ports (LPT, infrared) and allows read-only access to CD/DVD and FireWire

The wizard also prompts the administrator to enter his email address. This is then automatically configured to receive important administrative alerts from Safetica – from low disk drive on the server, to notifications about new versions.

Support for non-working hours

Other productivity features that were added based on user feedback are for non-working hours. This option is available in Maintenance – Client settings, and allows you to suspend monitoring and blocking of applications and websites during fully configurable off-hours and holidays.

This configuration applies only to productivity features available in Supervisor. DLP rules, policies and logging are not affected, so your sensitive data continues to be protected even during off hours.

Data protection for emails

Safetica has always been able to control and prevent protected files from being sent via email. We have taken this feature one step further: When you send a protected file via MS Outlook e.g. to a colleague, it will retain its protection.

What does this mean in real life? Let’s say you have internal documents that can’t be stored on a USB drive or printed, but your employees need to send them back and forth via email. Previously you probably would have blocked such documents from being emailed and forced users to share the documents via a secure network drive. With Safetica 7.3, you can simply create a policy for the file that prevents any unwanted actions, and this policy will be carried over even when you send the document via email.

Note: This protection is only applied on computers with Safetica client. Sending a protected document outside of your company, to a computer without Safetica, or opening it in an email client other than MS Outlook will void the protection.

New approach to updating old Safetica clients

Safetica 7.3 also brings a practical change in updating old Safetica clients in your network. If you have Safetica 6.1 or older installed in your environment, these clients will not download new settings and send data to the database after updating your Safetica Server to version 7.3. You can of course update the clients, or deactivate them if needed. This protects both your server and clients against compatibility issues, and allows you to safely update Safetica in your network to the newest version without any unwanted side effects, such as a bloated database or irregular endpoint behavior.

Once you update the clients, they will start communicating with the server again, and will send all logs that were kept on the client before the update.

New design and features in WebSafetica

WebSafetica was first introduced in Safetica 7 and we have been busy collecting feedback to make it your favorite way of looking at Safetica records and reports. Safetica 7.3 brings a major update in design and performance, as well as new features.

From now on, your WebSafetica will update automatically and independently of your Safetica Server. This gives us the flexibility to rapidly develop and deploy new features, and means that you won’t need to wait for a major Safetica update in order to enjoy these features.

We’ve also revised the statistics and user rights management in WebSafetica, and added Spanish localization into the mix based on popular demand from our Spanish and Latin American customers and partners.

Safetica 7.3 change log

• Improved DLP web core and detection performance

• Improved DLP logic

• New DLP UX on endpoints

• Improved tag distribution via application dialogues

• Tag distribution via outlook emails

• Automatic configuration of local GPO policies for BitLocker

• Improved Safetica Server performance to support more endpoints

• Revised backup logic to reduce backup size

• Improved 1^st configuration wizard

• New alerts for cloud upload and emails

• New Working Hours feature in Supervisor

• Information about email client added to email logs

• Removed support for client version 6.1 and older

• Spanish localization for WebSafetica and endpoints

• WebSafetica: improved performance and reduced database size

• WebSafetica: new design

• WebSafetica: new update mechanism

Written by Ladislav Mlcak, Head of Support @Safetica Technologies

Ladislav’s motto at work and in life is simplicity. Aiming to make our customers feel as comfortable as possible when using Safetica, he often gives our dev teams a hard time