No business wants to lose data, yet so many do whether through ransomware attacks, hard drive failures, or other. Unfortunately, there are dozens of ways an organization can lose data and risk security, compliance, customer trust, and more. Research found that over the course of the first half of 2022, 53 million individuals in the U.S. were affected by data compromises that resulted in sensitive data being accessed by an unauthorized threat actor. The good news is that there is something you can do about it.
Data loss prevention is an approach that involves both policy and technology in order to protect your business and customer data. Read on to learn more about it and how to implement it in your business.
What Is Data Loss Prevention?
Data loss prevention (DLP) is the intelligent detection and control of information across endpoints, applications, users, and other potential sites of vulnerability. It is a practice that prevents users from inappropriately sharing sensitive data with people who shouldn’t have it thereby reducing risk. Such data can include anything from credit card numbers to health records, financial data, social security numbers, and more.
What Does DLP Look Like in Practice?
The right approach to DLP implementation is to define and apply DLP policies first. Starting with policies helps you “identify, monitor, and automatically protect sensitive items,” according to Microsoft. Microsoft offers Microsoft Purview—a solution that helps to prevent data loss through native protection, seamless deployment, and integrated capabilities.
DLP policies enable you to monitor the activities users take on sensitive items at rest, in transit, or in use and proactively protect them accordingly. If a user tries to perform an action prohibited by your policy, they can receive notifications like pop-ups that warn them of what they’re about to do. DLP can also block the sharing of data, lock sensitive items, secure items, block the display of certain content in a chat, and more.
How Microsoft Purview for Data Loss Prevention Works
The solution detects sensitive items using deep content analysis that looks for primary data matches to keywords, and it also uses machine learning algorithms to detect content that matches your DLP policies. You can use it to automatically protect sensitive items across Microsoft 365; Office applications; Windows 10, 11, and macOS endpoints; non-Microsoft cloud apps; and on-premise files.
Achieving DLP with Microsoft Purview gives you several benefits:
- The ability to configure rules and enforcement actions with flexibility across a unified environment of apps, services, and devices
- A unified alerting and remediation approach that enables you to triage and remediate data loss with API support
- Security information and event management (SIEM) integration
- Integration with information protection that includes over 100 sensitive information types and 40 built-in policy templates
How Do I Get Started With DLP?
Since DLP is both a strategy and policy change as well as a technology change for your business, you’ll need to also consider organizational planning for it. Users will need to be trained on the changes afoot in your business, what the policies are, and what to be aware of. Use policy tips in a test mode to train users on what they will no longer be allowed to do once your policy goes live and you fully implement DLP technology.
The experts at Point Alliance can help you map out the right DLP strategy and solution for your organization. We have deep experience helping businesses proactively safeguard against data loss across all industries. Get in touch with us today to learn more about data loss prevention and if Microsoft’s DLP solution is right for you.
