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January 27, 2025
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5
 min read

Eliminating DLP False Positive Noise: How Strac’s AI Agent Supercharges Symantec DLP

Learn how Strac AI Agent reduces Symantec DLP False Positive Alerts

Eliminating DLP False Positive Noise: How Strac’s AI Agent Supercharges Symantec DLP

TL;DR

Symantec Data Loss Prevention (DLP) is a robust enterprise solution that helps organizations discover, monitor, and protect sensitive information. While Symantec DLP is renowned for its comprehensive coverage—from Endpoint to Network to Cloud—the reality is that false positives can still clutter the incident queue and overwhelm security teams.

Strac has a radical new approach: a powerful browser extension that taps into advanced AI/ML and OCR capabilities to auto-classify DLP incidents as likely true positives or false positives right in the Symantec DLP interface. Here’s how it all works and why it’s a game-changer.


1. The False Positive Problem

Organizations rely on Symantec DLP to automatically detect potential data exposures—such as credit card numbers, Social Security numbers, or other regulated data. However, a typical DLP deployment might generate hundreds or thousands of DLP incidents per day. A large portion of these alerts turn out to be false positives because:

  • Contextual nuances aren’t always understood by simple content or pattern-based detections.
  • Legitimate business transactions may appear suspicious when searching for certain sensitive data patterns.
  • OCR or image-based triggers can be especially prone to confusion without advanced AI.

Regardless, these incidents all end up in the Symantec DLP Incident Queue in the Enforce Console for manual verification—monopolizing security analysts’ valuable time.


2. The Strac Browser Extension

Enter Strac’s browser extension. Installed into your existing corporate browser environment, the Strac extension is specifically designed to work with Symantec DLP’s Enforce Console.

  • Automated AI Triaging: As soon as DLP alerts pop up in the Incident Snapshot view of Symantec DLP, Strac automatically reviews each incident in real-time.
  • Dynamic False Positive Detection: Strac’s proprietary AI/ML models—trained on historical DLP incidents across industries—pinpoint whether an alert is truly an exposure or merely an anomaly.
  • OCR-Powered Text Analysis: For attachments, images, or scanned documents, Strac’s OCR engine extracts text and merges it with context-aware detection logic, drastically reducing false positives triggered by partial or accidental pattern matches.

Strac’s secret sauce is embedding these insights within the Symantec console. There’s no need to open an external dashboard; you stay in your familiar Enforce environment.


3. Symantec DLP + Strac Integration Flow

Let’s step through the process:

  1. Incident Generation: Symantec DLP creates an incident whenever it detects data that matches a policy (e.g., Credit Card Number Policy).
  2. Incidents in Enforce Console: The incident is visible under Incidents > Manage Incidents in the Enforce console.
  3. Strac Extension Activates: The Strac extension recognizes new or existing incidents upon page load or refresh.
  4. AI Analysis: Strac’s behind-the-scenes AI automatically analyzes relevant text fields, files, or images. It identifies key data points such as potential personal data, context (who sent/received the data, domain reputations), and user activity.
  5. Auto-Triage: Strac outputs a True Positive / False Positive risk assessment, which is overlaid in the Incident Snapshot pane or in a new column (e.g., Strac Risk Score) next to existing data in the Enforce console.
  6. Accelerated Remediation: Security teams see a “confidence score” (or a simple label: Likely True Positive or Likely False Positive) and can bulk-resolve or escalate accordingly—without toggling back and forth between multiple tools.


4. Why This Matters for Your Security Team (SecOps)

  1. Reduction in Manual Review
    1. Instead of slogging through thousands of alerts, your team focuses on the incidents that matter most. Strac’s AI-based triage drastically reduces analyst fatigue.
  2. Seamless Integration
    1. Unlike other add-ons that require you to export data or switch to a separate dashboard, Strac is embedded right into the Symantec DLP Enforce interface. The learning curve is minimal.
  3. Context-Aware Decisions
    1. Strac’s AI goes beyond simple keyword matching. By analyzing email contexts, user behaviors, and actual text from image-based content (OCR), it can more accurately judge if something is truly a data leak.
  4. Time and Cost Savings
    1. Fewer false positives mean fewer hours spent investigating. This translates to tangible ROI in the form of staff time savings and mitigated risk from potential real incidents slipping by in a sea of false alarms.


5. Implementation and Setup

Implementation is straightforward:

  1. Install the Browser Extension: Your security or IT team deploys the Strac extension to the browsers used by analysts or managers responsible for triaging DLP incidents.
  2. Configure Access: The extension is given read-only or read/write permissions (depending on your workflows) within the Symantec DLP admin environment.
  3. AI/ML Model Customization: Optionally, Strac can train on your organization’s historical DLP incidents, refining the AI’s contextual understanding of your unique environment.
  4. Review and Respond: Immediately upon login to Symantec DLP’s Enforce Console, you see Strac’s predictions next to each incident’s details.

No heavy lifting, no complicated APIs—just a synergy of Strac + Symantec.


6. FAQ

  1. Will Strac’s extension affect Symantec DLP performance?
    1. Not at all. Strac runs in your local browser environment and calls secure cloud-based AI services only when needed. Symantec’s Enforce console performance remains unaffected.
  2. Does it work with Symantec DLP FlexResponse or other custom workflows?
    1. Absolutely. Strac’s solution complements existing incident response rules. You can still use Symantec’s FlexResponse or custom response rules while leveraging Strac’s classification to trigger the right follow-up actions automatically.
  3. Is Strac’s AI model data secure?
    1. Yes, Strac employs stringent encryption and data anonymization. Only the minimal metadata needed for classification is processed, ensuring that sensitive content stays protected.
  4. Does it support older versions of Symantec DLP?
    1. Strac aims for broad compatibility. While we always recommend updating to the latest Symantec DLP release, our extension supports many legacy environments—just confirm with the Strac team for exact version details.


7. Conclusion

Symantec DLP is integral to enterprise data security, but it’s time to supercharge it with AI. Strac’s browser extension brings next-level intelligence to reduce false positives, provide crucial context, and accelerate response—without forcing analysts to switch tools or endure mind-numbing manual reviews.

If you’re ready to stop sifting through false positives and start focusing on the real threats hiding among your alerts, Strac is your ultimate partner. Together with Symantec, we’re creating a win-win solution that protects your data, respects your team’s time, and bolsters your organization’s overall security posture.

Discover & Protect Data on SaaS, Cloud, Generative AI
Strac provides end-to-end data loss prevention for all SaaS and Cloud apps. Integrate in under 10 minutes and experience the benefits of live DLP scanning, live redaction, and a fortified SaaS environment.
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