Locking down security access to storage media

You should look internally as well as externally for applicable security threats in your customer's environment. Categorize those risks to how they will affect your customer's business and information systems. Providing some level of security -- both logical and physical -- is an opportunity to expand your presence and opportunities with customers.

In addition to protecting removable magnetic tapes and disk drives, you should also think about securing data sources and locations inside customer's firewalls, portable USB devices and PDAs. Talk with your customers about key management, secure audit trails and logs, digital shredding or secure disposal of data and IT equipment. You can also leverage new technologies like RFID embedded tape labels, GPS and location transmitter equipped shipping containers for removable media to enhance legacy technologies.