Microsoft is hardening its virtual wall against prying eyes. The first service pack for Microsoft's enterprise Windows Rights Management Services (RMS) has been released nearly a year and a half after the product first hit the market.

SP1 addresses the inability of the initial release to incorporate server application into its "lockbox," complies with government data regulations, applies rights management policies to dynamic groups, strengthens authentication, and broadens records management capabilities.

Windows Rights Management Services keeps confidential documents and e-mails from being viewed, forwarded or printed by individuals without the appropriate access rights. In other words, Microsoft has designed a mechanism that truly makes sensitive information "for your eyes only".

Microsoft uses XrML -- an extensible, XML-based rights expression language -- as the basis for its rights management and has broken Windows RMS into three core components: RMS server, client and an add-on for Internet Explorer that opens access to RMS-protected applications to users that do not have the applications installed.

Service Pack 1 for Windows RMS extends "lockbox" support beyond client applications, such as Microsoft's Office productivity suite, to server applications. Some examples of RMS-enabled server solutions suggested by Microsoft include: document and records management solutions, e-mail archiving, and content inspection gateways as a second line of defense.

Other SP1 improvements are support for "air-gap" networks, or private LANs that do not have Internet access; Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 140-1 compliance, two-factor security authentication including smartcard support; and tighter integration with Active Directory with more versatile group policy management.

Due to the changes in group policy, administrators will no longer need to update group policy definitions when a person enters or leaves the group.

A beta of Windows RMS Service Pack 1 was released in November.

When asked if Microsoft was targeting governments with the release, a spokesperson told BetaNews, "The RMS SP1 release applies to, and can benefit, any organization concerned with protecting sensitive information. We are not specifically targeting government customers for this release, but some of our government customers have expressed early interest in RMS SP1 because of FIPS validation and other improvements."

Microsoft is heavily reliant on developers to build solutions based upon its rights management framework and has publicized many third party releases. Despite the fact that Microsoft cites a partner developing Windows RMS solutions for Adobe Acrobat, Adobe is offering up its own competing rights management solution called Intelligent Document Platform.

More information on Windows Rights Management services is available on Microsoft's Web site.