Data Risk Management
Did Someone Say "Innovation?" Exterro's Got That.
April 19, 2023
Exterro's at it again, receiving a patent from the US Patent and Trademark Office for our revolutionary new Data Source Discovery software. The software addresses one of the biggest challenges legal teams have to get their arms around during e-discovery, regulatory inquiries, and other legal matters: understanding where all the relevant data is by having an up-to-date, accurate list of data sources.
Organizations today of all sizes move so fast, with new business units and employee groups being formed, merging, and dissolved, each one of them implementing and using new software systems that hold data that might be subject of an inquiry. And that's not to mention all the technology shifts (Zoom, anyone, or Slack, or even Discord as a recent case law alert points out) that existing units might bring online.
“Legal teams have always been challenged when trying to quickly and accurately obtain a current list of data sources where employees are creating and storing data. This is even more difficult given how quickly an employee can spin up a new Slack Channel, Microsoft Teams or SharePoint site, or similar data source,” said Shashi Angadi, CTO, Exterro.
Enter Data Source Discovery. Our now-patented software helps legal professionals automatically maintain a current data source catalog without having to rely on IT or experience critical time delays. The software offers a defensible, easy-to-use solution for non-technical users, and seamlessly integrates with other applications—including applications within the Exterro Legal GRC platform like Data Inventory, Legal Hold and E-Discovery Data Management, as well as a number of external applications used for collaboration, like Microsoft Teams® and Slack®. The software also provides real-time insight via dashboards and reporting that offer immediate visibility into where employees are creating and storing data.
Angadi continues, “Relying on IT and custodian interviews results in costly delays and increased risk. Exterro Data Source Discovery eliminates these issues by automatically discovering data sources, updating the data source catalog, and associating data sources to employees who have data stored within them, reducing the identification of data sources from a few weeks or months to the time it takes to open our application.”
“We’ve known for some time that this technology is truly groundbreaking for in-house professionals, outside counsel, and IT employees who are dealing with multiple data sources and trying to maintain current data catalogs,” said company founder and CEO Bobby Balachandran. “Exterro currently holds numerous patents for e-discovery and Legal GRC technology, and we plan to keep innovating to help our clients mitigate risks related to litigation, evolving privacy regulations and cybersecurity threats. This latest patent is just another step in our journey toward empowering customers to proactively and defensibly manage the full spectrum of their legal obligations.”
Features and capabilities of Exterro’s Data Source Discovery Software include:
- An elegant and intuitive setup process that enables legal professionals to automatically refresh and update their data source catalog and associate data sources with custodians—without the need to involve IT
- Accurate and fast scoping for litigation, internal investigations, Data Subject Access Requests and more by custodian or data source
- Seamless integration via connectors to more than 40 enterprise data sources, including Microsoft Office 365, Slack and Google, and other applications in the Exterro Legal GRC platform
- Support for each organization’s unique IT infrastructure, even if it includes multi-tenant instances to segregate data by region