What Is Data Loss Prevention?
Data loss prevention (DLP) is a core component of data security, encompassing strategies and tools designed to detect, monitor, and protect sensitive data from unauthorized access, leakage, or loss. DLP solutions act as a robust shield, safeguarding data from malicious insiders, external cyberattacks, or accidental mishandling across networks, endpoints, and the cloud.
What is sensitive data?
Sensitive data differs by organization, but typically, it is information that must be protected from unauthorized access or exposure for legal or business reasons. Different types of sensitive data are subject to strict information handling policies. An organization will create data protection requirements based on their industry (ex., healthcare, finance, government), legal obligations, intellectual property (ex., code, patents, trade secrets), and business operations.
Why is DLP important?
In today's data-driven world, DLP is essential for organizations of all sizes. Here's why:
Data Visibility & Management
DLP provides a comprehensive view of sensitive data, allowing organizations to understand where it resides, how it moves across endpoints and networks, who has access, and how it's used. This visibility is crucial for effective data governance and risk management.
Compliance
Regulatory compliance is a driving force behind the adoption of DLP. Laws like GDPR and CCPA, as well as industry-related standards such as HIPAA, PCI DSS, SOX, and ISO 27001, mandate strict data security measures, and non-compliance can result in heavy fines. DLP solutions help organizations meet these compliance requirements by handling sensitive data securely and responsibly.
Stop Data Breaches
With cyberattacks growing in sophistication, DLP acts as a critical barrier to monitoring and blocking potential data leaks. By proactively identifying and mitigating risks, DLP helps organizations avoid costly data breaches and reputational damage.
How does DLP work?
DLP operates through a combination of discovery, classification, and policy enforcement to protect sensitive information. It focuses on monitoring across the data lifecycle.
- Discovery and Identification: DLP tools scan networks, endpoints, and cloud storage to identify and classify sensitive data based on predefined rules and patterns.
- Monitoring: Once identified, DLP solutions continuously monitor how sensitive data is accessed, transferred, and used, alerting administrators to suspicious activity.
- Protection: DLP solutions implement various protection mechanisms, such as blocking unauthorized data transfers, encrypting sensitive data, and restricting access to specific users or applications.
- Reporting: Reports provided by DLP solutions in real-time or on scheduled intervals document regulatory compliance, assist with rule-fine tuning, and help mitigate future data loss.
Types of DLP
DLP solutions are categorized based on their deployment and focus:
Endpoint DLP: Endpoint DLP protects data on individual devices, such as laptops, desktops, and servers. They monitor when data is copied, pasted, or transferred from these devices. These endpoints are among the most vulnerable data leakage points, as employees frequently handle sensitive information on their workstations.
Network DLP: Network DLP solutions monitor data flowing across the network, detecting and blocking unauthorized data transfers through email, file sharing, or web browsing.
Cloud DLP: Cloud DLP solutions protect data stored in cloud services, such as cloud storage repositories, cloud databases, and SaaS applications. They monitor data access, transfer, and usage within the cloud environment.
Top data leak vectors
Data leaks can occur through various channels. Understanding these vectors is crucial for implementing effective DLP strategies:
Workstations (Laptops/Computers): Employees often store sensitive data on their personal devices, making them vulnerable to data leaks through unauthorized access, malware, or accidental data loss.
Networks: Data leaks can occur through network vulnerabilities, such as unencrypted Wi-Fi connections, compromised network devices, or unauthorized access to network shares.
Email: Email is a common vector for data leaks, with sensitive information accidentally or intentionally sent to unauthorized recipients.
Web: Data can be leaked through websites and web applications, especially when users download or upload sensitive files or submit sensitive data through forms.
Databases: Attackers often target databases as they hold some of the most valuable sensitive information within an organization. DLP solutions can help protect databases by monitoring access, transfer, and usage of sensitive data.
States of data
DLP must safeguard data in its various states to provide comprehensive protection:
Data in Motion: Data actively moving through networks, including transferring between devices, sent through emails, or shared over the web. DLP solutions provide continuous monitoring and content inspection to protect data in motion across. DLP solutions can block transfers, enforce encryption protocols, or issue warnings using techniques such as exact data matching.
Data at Rest: Data stored in repositories on endpoints, network file servers, databases, cloud storage, etc. DLP solutions create an inventory of sensitive data and classify what needs to be protected, as well as take actions to move, delete, or apply rights management where needed. DLP rules should also be used to apply encryption automatically to sensitive files as appropriate.
Data in Use: DLP protects data in use for active editing, saving, or printing by preventing unauthorized actions that could result in leakage. Rules can monitor or block copying/pasting between applications, screen capture/snipping activity, or transfer to external devices like a USB. Other features to protect data in use include watermarking and device control, which tightly enforces device connections with the endpoint, such as external printers.
Data protection industry challenges
Implementing DLP can help address some of the biggest challenges facing organizations today:
Data Expansion: As organizations generate and store increasing amounts of data, DLP solutions are critical to finding and protecting the data that matters across vast ecosystems.
Insider Risks: Employees can accidentally share sensitive information or misuse it maliciously. DLP policies must address both types of risk.
Regulatory Landscape: The constantly evolving regulatory landscape makes maintaining complex compliance requirements that vary across industries and regions difficult. Built-in policies, rules, and reporting can simplify and streamline critical activities, as well as support audits and forensic investigations.
Trellix's approach to DLP
Trellix offers a comprehensive DLP solution that provides unprecedented protection for sensitive and proprietary information across the entire data lifecycle.
- Delivers Comprehensive Visibility: Trellix DLP safeguards sensitive data from the keyboard to the cloud, offering industry-leading discovery and classification capabilities.
- Deploys Policies Across Top Threat Vectors: Trellix DLP effectively enforces data protection policies across various threat vectors, including endpoints, networks, email, web, and cloud storage applications.
- Responds to Events in Real-Time: Trellix DLP provides real-time event monitoring and response, enabling organizations to quickly detect and mitigate security threats.
- Coaches Users: Trellix DLP includes user education and coaching features to help users understand data security best practices and avoid accidental data leaks.
- Generates Reports: Trellix DLP provides comprehensive reporting capabilities, enabling organizations to speed up and simplify compliance, share valuable incident details, and monitor trends to make improvements to rules and policies.
Safeguard Against Intentional and Accidental Data Leaks:
Trellix DLP protects organizations from intentional and accidental data leaks, ensuring that sensitive information remains secure.
Protects Structured and Unstructured Data:
Trellix DLP protects structured and unstructured data, including documents, emails, databases, and across 400+ content types. The add-on for Optical Character Recognition (OCR) enables protection for sensitive information found in images and .pdf documents.
Centralized Management, Protection Across Top Threat Vectors (ePO):
Trellix DLP is managed through the ePO platform, providing a single control point for policy management, reporting, and event management.
Trellix DLP Products:
- Endpoint Complete provides comprehensive protection for workstations and laptops, including DLP capabilities to prevent data exfiltration from email, web browsers, and endpoint storage. It also includes Device Control, which allows organizations to manage and restrict device access to sensitive data.
- Network Prevent enforces data protection policies, blocking unauthorized data transfers through email, file sharing, or web browsing.
- Network Monitor tracks sensitive data sharing over networks, providing valuable insights into data usage patterns and potential security risks.
- Discover helps organizations find and classify sensitive data across their entire environment using exact data matching, providing a comprehensive view of their data.
Seamless Integration with Skyhigh Security Trellix DLP seamlessly integrates with Skyhigh Security, extending protection further across cloud applications and ensuring comprehensive data security across the entire organization. Apply policies and view cloud DLP events through Trellix ePO single management console.
Trellix DLP
Data loss prevention is critical to data security, safeguarding organizations from unauthorized access, leakage, or loss of sensitive information. Trellix DLP solutions provide comprehensive protection for sensitive data, offering industry-leading discovery, classification, monitoring, and response capabilities. By implementing a robust DLP strategy, organizations can effectively protect their data, meet compliance requirements, and mitigate the risks associated with data breaches and insider threats.