By Todd Doerr

This year brought exciting growth for the managed file transfer (MFT) industry. In the year to come, things aren’t going to slow down; in fact, we expect the demand to grow with increasing government regulatory activity. One area, in particular, where we can expect to see tremendous innovation is in addressing the risk posed by the ad hoc transfer of files inside and outside of enterprises.

Typically, traditional MFT systems only address system-to-system file transfers. Ad hoc transfers – where an employee sends files when they want and through whichever means are most convenient at the time – are not usually accounted for by these traditional approaches. However, ad hoc transfers represent a growing trend in MFT and a risk in digital information exchange.

What’s responsible for driving this trend? The sheer increase in the size and volume of files, along with less-than-ideal security measures. In today’s businesses, the majority of data flowing through email infrastructures is file attachments. After an email attachment leaves the enterprise, it travels unencrypted and unprotected to its recipients without an audit trail.  In addition, tight email attachment size limitations enforced by IT, along with awkward IT workarounds, often lead employees to use unapproved solutions such as personal email accounts for sending files.

Companies are beginning to wake up and understand the security risks this trend poses to their corporate information. These transfers don’t comply with company security policies, and in most cases, they are unaccounted for. IT must be able to track and audit transfers of data coming in and out of their businesses – for both compliance reasons and to better prevent intentional or unintentional data breaches.

To meet customer needs, solution providers must embrace the people-centric facet of information exchange, one that accommodates the flexibility of ad hoc transfers. They must also put some teeth in their current policies, ensuring that they know how, when, and with whom their users are sending files. The more innovative shops focus on using technology to centrally manage their key data security policies across the enterprise, rather than relying on fragmented and uncoordinated systems, the better. Most importantly, they must adopt easy-to-use, integrated solutions.

In my next post, I’ll cover yet another important MFT trend for 2010:  Why process automation is essential for many new MFT deployments.