Content security specialist Workshare has released a new system to monitor and assess the risks of illegal or confidential content leaving a firm’s network in the form of email and web traffic.

The Trace Enterprise Network appliance sits at the gateway and monitors data traffic in real time, while the Trace Enterprise Endpoint software analyses the data across a sample of users and systems, producing reports, which can then be acted upon, according to the firm.

"Nearly 60 percent of the people responsible for outbound content security don't know the size of the risk [according to our recent survey]," said Workshare's vice-president of worldwide products and marketing, Ken Rutsky. " These tools offer a low-cost and rapid way of assessing your risk levels."

Rutsky said large organisations are increasingly aware of the need to guard and check outbound content to comply with regulations and avoid bad publicity.

"Large firms have got their antivirus anti-spam and [spyware protection tools] and now they're ready to look at other risks," said Rutsky. "Smaller companies perhaps have more urgency in [antivirus and anti-spam protection] but ironically the cost of outbound security [breaches] is higher."

Workshare Trace Enterprise Network and Endpoint can be deployed as part of the vendor's Workshare Risk Assessment Service.