For years, organizations’ security efforts focused on shoring up network perimeters. These days, the focus has expanded to protecting sensitive corporate data from insiders—trusted employees and business partners—who might either maliciously steal or inadvertently leak information.

Think about all the ways we move and store data on mobile devices: USB ports, which support a multitude of portable storage devices, including flash drives, portable hard drives, printers, and music and video players; FireWire, PCMCIA, serial and parallel ports, CDs/DVDs, tape drives and even the lowly floppy drive. Add unprotected WiFi, Bluetooth and Infrared (IrDA) connections. Portable storage media is indeed an end user’s dream, but a security manager’s nightmare.

With increase in number of devices within the enterprise network, the number of ways in which information can leave an organization, has increased dramatically. There are many ways, not just the email, through which data can be leaked. Today’s mobile workforce can steal or lose sensitive data quickly and without detection, from a software developer sneaking out gigabytes of valuable source code on his iPod or USB or he can setup a secure http session and take out the data in an encrypted format.

There are several instances where data is flowing out of the network without anyone’s intent. The spyware, which an executive downloaded without knowledge, might be shipping sensitive data out of the enterprise. “Extrusion Detection or information leakage is one of the prime security concerns,” says Anil Chakravarthy, Vice President, India Technical Operations, Symantec Corporation.

More than ever before, employees are plugging laptops into networks remotely, putting companies at risk for viruses, worms and spyware. Guests, consultants and suppliers running unmanaged PCs compound the risk. The rise of the mobile workforce has put the spotlight on endpoint protection.