By Gary Judd, Product Management

Digital rights management (DRM) has held the promise of providing the best of both worlds when it came to M&A and due diligence. Deal administrators would have complete control to protect sensitive content and reviewers would have an easy way to download, review and work with the content in their own environment for due diligence.  But that has not materialized for deal administrators.  In fact, today DRM security inside most VDR providers is inconsistent, at best.  And with most deals having thousands of documents inside them of different types and formats, inconsistent security is a recipe for problems.

The Problem with DRM in Today’s VDR’s

Let’s take a common scenario to illustrate the problems:  Most every deal room will include a large number of both Adobe PDF’s and Microsoft Office files inside them.  Reviewers will login, download the content they need and organize it on their desktop. Files get assigned to various team members for review, and when it comes time to access these files two problems quickly arise: 

First, with DRM capability in some VDR products, reviewers can easily copy sensitive content out of the files.  It often happens like this – reviewers know they have a controlled amount of time to work with the file before the administrators revokes access to it.  And while there are basic security controls to prevent printing of the files, the user simply bypasses these controls by copying the content directly out of the files and into a new file with no DRM controls on it.  While this is good for the reviewer, it is very bad for the administrator who has now effectively lost custody of their content.

Second, if your VDR provider is using a native DRM solution to protect content, they would need to ensure that they are able to keep up to date with any security patches and other enhancements for every file type that they protect in order to ensure that DRM protections persist on content that gets downloaded. If the DRM solution becomes deprecated, you may find that users are either able to bypass the intended security, or not be able to access content at all. Again, Why?  Because some of the leading VDR vendors just use native tools intended for specific file types only to embed support for DRM in their products, which has different levels of DRM protections depending on the type and version of the file being protected.    

So what is the solution?  How do you provide reviewers flexibility to easily download and work on things like Excel financial models while still maintaining effective access controls over the files and the content within those files?

The Solution: DRM for Datasite Diligence

The answer is in DRM for Datasite Diligence.  How?  We have embedded a powerful DRM technology into Datasite Diligence.  Seclore provides Datasite a rich, secure DRM platform which means Datasite Diligence customers get the best of both worlds.  Deal administrators have strong, consistent DRM on many file types, regardless of how they are accessed.  While reviewers have an easy to use, flexible way to access the files and work on them to complete due diligence, without hindrance.

DRM for Datasite Diligence provides administrators on a deal with an easy way to control access to files and content within the files. This allows consistent DRM protections to be executed irrespective of the file type.  So, there are no security issues with files of different types or created on different versions of Microsoft Office, as described above.  In addition, there is no ability to copy content out of a protected file.  So, you can rest assured your deal remains secure.

For reviewers on the deal, they get flexible, easy access to files they need.  Reviewers can access files however they want - opening and working on files via the web, without need of a plugin, or they can choose to download the files and use the native application to work with the content.  The DRM technology does not get in the way so your clients have the best experience possible.

As the deal progresses, the administrator can use DRM for Datasite Diligence to easily revoke access to reviewers who are no longer in the running with the knowledge that content was not copied out of files.  Clean, simple, secure.

To learn more about DRM for Datasite Diligence and receive a demo, click on the Contact Us button below.