DLP
Overview
Data Loss Prevention (DLP) means many things to many people and there are many methods to achieve it. A DLP system is designed to detect potential data breaches and prevent them by monitoring data while in use, in-motion and at rest, ensuring that your corporate data is unable to leave the secured and controlled environment. Before you even start to look at a DLP you must define what data you consider to be most valued, for example customer databases, CAD drawings, financial results, credit card data, personal information, corporate branding and also understand where this data is stored and who has access to it.
There are many methods which data can be leaked; it might be a disgruntled employee posting information on Twitter or Facebook, or an employee trying to be more productive by uploading a sensitive document to their webmail account to work on it from home, or even an advanced persistent threat that uploads a portion of the customer database or a group of documents to an external FTP server.
Market Trends
DLP has been around for a long time but it’s only recently started becoming prominent with industry legislation and fines being imposed. With a lot more data being made more available to more people and with the explosion of devices, businesses have now seen a need to protect their assets and information.
DLP can range from locking down and encrypting endpoint clients such as laptops through to total solutions which manage the endpoint and monitor data in motion and scan the data on the network which might be deemed sensitive.
Finding sensitive data is a large part of the battle in protecting it, if you don’t know where it is, or who has access to it or even what files might have sensitive information in them then it is almost impossible to classify and ultimately stop it from leaving a controlled environment.
Solution Benefits
The benefits of DLP solutions are not always apparent however for your business that has a lot to lose in the event of a data breach then the fines or negative publicity can prove more costly.
DLP solutions should offer you greater control and protection of your corporate information and help you meet certain levels of compliance, whether this is HIPPA, PCI or simply by stopping the company credit card information from being leaked.
Key Benefits of a DLP solution are:
- Industry regulation compliance
- Protection against fines.
- Automated systems which allow quick remediation of breaches.
- Ability to scan databases, documents, endpoints, files and network locations and automatically identify whether the type of content and protect if necessary or relevant.
- Ability to control and lock down endpoints.
- Ability to monitor and stop data leaving the business over multiple channels.
Why SecureData?
SecureData is the largest Independent security service provider in the UK and offers a wide range of technologies and services. We have been involved in a many DLP deployments,which have ranged from the more simple endpoint lockdown, through to full blown data loss solutions which manage the endpoint, search the network for sensitive information and stop the information from leaving the network.
As mentioned above, because of the ambiguity of ‘DLP’ we have a number of solutions available. These range from the more simplistic control of endpoints, such as media lockdown and full disk encryption through to the more sophisticated solutions that will scan network traffic and network/client storage for pre-defined and template data.
Through extensive and continuous research we are able to offer a variety of technologies to deliver these solutions and to suit your requirements. The technologies that we offer are seen as ’best of breed’ within the security market and have been selected not only because of the features they offer but also because of the vendors’ commercial offerings, ability to provide global support, ability to include new features and support future trends. We invest time in not only choosing the correct technologies to sit within our portfolio, but also in Sales and Technical training so that not only are we able to supply the correct technology to suit your requirements but are also able to offer Professional Services for Implementation and Training backed up by either a supported, monitored or managed service. We achieve the highest levels of technical and commercial accreditations with all those vendors that sit within our product portfolio.