This article talks about Data Loss Prevention and its importance in protecting sensitive data, ensuring compliance, and preventing breaches.
DLP tools protect data by:
To maximize DLP investment, organizations must:
Choose the ideal DLP software for an organization based on:
Cloud DLP solutions, like Strac, provide unparalleled visibility and control into an organization's data while mitigating fraudulent activity.
Data loss can be a nightmare, costing businesses valuable time and money. Losing crucial data means losing countless hours of hard work, critical data, and ultimately client trust. Data breaches are an unfortunate reality of our digital world and are increasingly common.
According to Statista, the average cost of a data breach globally in 2022 was $4.35 million, a 2.6% increase from 2021. Protecting sensitive information has never been more crucial in today's interconnected society.
Data Loss Prevention (DLP)or Data leak Prevention is essential to an organization's security strategy. It identifies and prevents data loss, leakage, or abuse caused by breaches and unauthorized access to sensitive information. It delivers comprehensive security measures by classifying content and implementing data loss prevention techniques.
DLP security solutions are more than just data storage and retention policies. They help organizations maintain regulatory compliance. DLP solutions promptly respond to breaches or security incidents with alerts, encryption, and data isolation capabilities. DLP software accelerate incident response by identifying threats and anomalous activity during routine monitoring.
Moreover, they ensure compliance with regulations like HIPAA and GDPR. A comprehensive DLP system provides complete insight into all network data, whether in use, motion, or rest.
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Data loss can severely affect businesses, including hefty fines and potential criminal penalties. Moreover, it can significantly harm an organization's reputation and lead to its downfall. In fact, according to a survey conducted by Zogby Analytics in 2019, 10% of small businesses ceased operations after experiencing a data exfiltration, while 25% filed for bankruptcy and 37% suffered significant financial losses.
As companies increasingly adopt remote work and rely on cloud-based infrastructure, having a robust DLP (Data Loss Prevention) solution has become essential to their risk reduction strategy. A DLP software offers comprehensive protection for sensitive data by addressing both physical and digital security threats and preventing unauthorized access or information misuse.
Compliance with standards like HIPAA for protected health information and GDPR for personal data should be a top priority for any organization that collects IP(intellectual property),PII, PHI, or PCI data. DLP makes classifying sensitive information easy, keeping tabs on any actions involving that information, and generating reports for compliance audits.
Every company has to protect valuable intellectual property and business-critical information. Modern DLP systems can reduce risks to your organization's finances and reputation through context-based categorization in structured and unstructured forms. With effective regulations in place, businesses can prevent the unauthorized exfiltration of data. Loss of intellectual property can result in a competitive disadvantage as well as financial and reputational harm. DLP systems use advanced algorithms to detect and categorize sensitive data, reducing the likelihood of data breaches.
DLP software monitors, detects and blocks sensitive data from leaving an organization. Gain the ability to track and monitor data on various endpoints, networks, and the cloud, empowering you to fully understand the interactions of individual users with your company's data. Real-time monitoring capabilities provided by DLP solutions enable rapid detection and remediation of potentially risky data transfer. Additionally, these solutions offer analytical insights that can help organizations optimize their data security measures over time.
Below are the benefits of implementing a DLP security solution:
Investing in DLP adoption is wise for companies looking to reduce the risk of data loss. Organizations gain complete visibility into the information being accessed, providing them with an added layer of protection. Thanks to DLP solutions, businesses can effectively protect themselves from ransomware attacks, prevent data theft, unauthorized sharing of documents, and combat phishing attempts.
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Your company can readily detect breaches and protect sensitive data if it has a complete picture of the data movement throughout the cycle. You can establish a compliant data policy that guarantees the safety of critical information using DLP'S data categorization.
DLP systems can identify and prevent unauthorized activity on your network thanks to their sophisticated scanning abilities. DLP guarantees that sensitive information stays protected inside the bounds of your network, whether it is sent by email, copied to external devices, or any other means.
Automatic classification is a process that collects important details about a document, such as its creation date, storage location, and sharing methods. This information is used to enhance the accuracy and effectiveness of data classification within your organization. A DLP solution utilizes this information to effectively implement your DLP policy, thereby reducing the risk of unauthorized sharing of sensitive data.
Complying with data protection regulations such as HIPAA, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX), and the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) is critical. Adopting a DLP solution gives you access to extensive reporting features that simplify compliance audits, reducing noncompliance risks and penalties.
DLP solutions are designed to monitor data access and usage to mitigate threats effectively. It ensures that only those with permission can access sensitive information and keeps track of their activities.
DLP mitigates the risks associated with insider breaches and fraudulent activities by effectively managing the digital identities of employees, vendors, and partners within the network. Role-based access control (RBAC) is one approach that guarantees only authorized users have access to sensitive information.
DLP solutions provide unparalleled visibility into your organization's critical data while identifying fraudulent activity. As organizations transition to cloud computing, maintaining visibility over sensitive information becomes challenging, demanding a cloud DLP solution.
Strac, a cloud DLP solution, automatically detects and redacts (masks) sensitive data (images, text, audio, video) from all Cloud and SaaS apps (email, slack, zendesk, intercom, AWS services, Google Drive, One Drive, ChatGPT, and more).
You get to choose the degree of confidentiality for each record and can also set up automatic responses for security incidents. You can further configure in-depth data and content analysis evaluating both present and future risks bolstering cybersecurity and DLP initiatives.
When it comes to protecting data within an organization, DLP security solutions shine due to their ability to classify and constantly monitor critical data. They dramatically boost your data security by identifying and blocking suspicious and illegal activity.
Data threats statistics
Data threats can seriously impact the security of your organization's data, compromising its integrity, confidentiality, and accessibility. It's these types of factors that drive DLP adoption:
A cyberattack is an intentional and malicious attempt to illegally penetrate computer systems, targeting organizations and individuals to collect, alter, or destroy data illegally. Cyberattacks include distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, spyware, and ransomware.
In February 2020, Amazon Web Services was targeted by a massive DDoS attack using Connectionless Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (CLDAP) reflection. This method uses susceptible third-party CLDAP servers that multiply the amount of data delivered to the victim's IP address by 56 to 70 times. The three-day attack peaked at a staggering 2.3 gigabytes per second.
Malware refers to any malicious program cybercriminals use to infiltrate a computer system or network by infecting them to steal confidential information.
Ransomware is a kind of malware that presents a substantial risk to both people and businesses. It prevents access to important data and systems or even destroys them until a ransom is paid.
Royal launched a ransomware attack on Dallas, causing the city to close down its critical systems, including the websites for the police department and city hall, to prevent the attack from spreading. The group threatened to disclose sensitive personal data, extensive court documents, medical information, and government records.
Insiders have intimate information regarding your computer systems and security policies. Insider risk occurs when these insiders abuse their permitted access to cause damage to your organization. On the other hand, unintentional exposure happens when employees accidentally grant access to unauthorized users or viruses.
A Yahoo research scientist stole confidential information about a Yahoo product after accepting a job offer from a competitor. He downloaded 570,000 IP pages to his personal device to help him in his new job. An example of unintentional exposure was the infamous 2020 Twitter spear-phishing attack that compromised multiple high-profile accounts. Attackers targeted the right employees and got access to 130 Twitter accounts.
Phishing is the fraudulent act of sending emails while posing as reputable businesses or reliable sources. The fundamental purpose of phishing attacks is to trick users into providing sensitive information such as credentials and payment information.
Check out Strac Gmail Data Loss Prevention
Given the complexity of the threat environment and the magnitude of business networks, implementing a Data Loss Prevention (DLP) strategy is no easy feat.
Below best practices can help you maximize your investment in DLP tools .
Prioritize the data you need to protect. Understand the different categories of data in your organization like PII (Personally identifiable information), PHI(Protected Health Information), PCI( Payment Card Industry )data and classify them based on their sensitivity levels. An accurate data inventory is the foundation for effective data loss prevention.
Develop clear DLP policies and procedures based on the type of data you have, its sensitivity, and applicable compliance regulations. This includes identifying who has access to what data, under what circumstances data can be transferred or shared, and what to do in case of a potential breach.
Restrict access to sensitive data and implement the principle of least privilege, granting employees access to only the information necessary for their role. This reduces the risk of data exposure from the inside.
Always encrypt sensitive data both in transit and at rest. In the event of a breach, encryption can render the data useless to unauthorized individuals.
Use your DLP solution to continuously monitor and log all data movements within your network. Regular audits of these logs can help identify potential threats before they cause damage.
Conduct regular DLP training and make sure all employees understand the importance of data security. Often, data breaches are the result of ignorance rather than malicious intent.
Regular testing and updating of your DLP system can help you keep up with evolving security threats. It also helps to ensure that your DLP system remains compatible with other systems in your IT infrastructure.
Have a well-defined incident response plan in place. In the event of a data breach, your team should know exactly what steps to take. This includes how to isolate affected systems, how to investigate the breach, how to communicate the breach to stakeholders and authorities, and how to prevent similar breaches in the future.
To help you choose among many DLP vendors for your organization, answer these questions first
Strac offers a quick and easy solution to ensure your organization has the right compliance measures in place for audits. Our DLP solution helps you meet compliance requirements efficiently by automating daily tasks and streamlining data protection processes.
With Strac's redaction experience, you can easily block sensitive customer data such as,
This ensures that your organization remains compliant while keeping sensitive data secure. Strac's audit reports give 100% visibility and control over data, providing detailed insights into your data usage, allowing you to monitor and manage it effectively.
Read more on Data Loss Prevention in Cloud and SaaS
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