How Data Loss Prevention (DLP) Works to Protect Businesses from Data Loss in a Hybrid Working Environment

In today’s world, data drives business. It dictates decisions, enhances customer engagement, and encourages innovation. Unfortunately, with increasing amounts of data, remote working, and adoption of cloud services, organizations have to contend with an uncomfortable truth. Businesses are at greater risk of data loss than ever before.  

Disastrous repercussions are caused by data loss through a myriad of ways including file sharing, cyberattacks, and more. Excel spreadsheets can without a doubt deteriorate into utter chaos if not cautiously curated and controlled. DLP software proposes an answer and this is what is at the heart of it. It allows bridging IT security compliance alongside user behavior.  

What is DLP, and what is its importance?  

What is Data Loss Prevention? DLPencompasses all policies related to defending an organization’s sensitive data. This incorporates data marking, identifying types of data, and examination to track data delegates activities and classify against predetermined standards.

At its core, DLP prevents critical data from going somewhere it should not go: trade secrets, financial records, and even personal customer information. In a way, it puts a lock on a drawer and sets a motion sensitive alarm system for interactivity.  

Situations more commonly dealt with by DLP tools regarding data protection include:  

– Sending sensitive spreadsheets through external email by employees.  

– Uploading documents to personal drives by contractor for ease.  

– Disgruntled employees copying proprietary files onto USB drives.  

– Users saving personal detail exposed data on unencrypted shared drives.

Each of the examples listed above may result in legal complaints, loss in reputation, or financial costs. DLP operates silently and works to flag, block, encrypt, or report such instances as they happen. 

Types of DLP Solutions

According to the business’s requirements and IT setup, DLP solutions can be categorized into three main groups: 

  1. Network DLP: Tracks data while it is being transmitted over the network through emails, web uploads, and cloud applications. This is effective in identifying risky data transfers. 
  1. Endpoint DLP: Deals with the protection of simple data stored on user devices such as laptops and desktops. This software manages the actions of copying to USB ports, printer, and screenshots. 
  1. Cloud DLP: Safeguards simple data on SaaS applications of the same type as safeguard offered for M365, Google Workspace, and Salesforce, by inspecting uploads, shares, and downloads of files in the cloud. 

Most DLP vendors these days provide some form of integrated solutions that seamlessly combine all three to offer visibility across hybrid settings. 

How DLP Works in Real Time

Let us look into a basic illustration. 

Assume that your organization utilizes Microsoft 365 and a sales manager is attempting to send an email to their personal email account for business use purposes that includes an attachment. The attachment in question contains a spreadsheet with 500 customer credit card numbers.

A DLP solution/System integrated in Microsoft Purview may:

– Identify sensitive information through a set and automated inheritance business rules or data framework classification and rules engine.

– Automatically take action to prevent further dissemination of that document or Email.

– Send appropriate warning to IT security personnel.

– Automatically record the event for compliance audit tracker.

And all of these actions on the sensitive information email take with the contents of the email processed seamlessly without interruption to the entire system or breaching privacy policies. Now that is the great advantage of DLP is the intelligent and targeted prevention.

Important Factors to Consider When Selecting a DLP Solution

Defining the right DLP system selection framework is the right choice based on the size of the organization, density-of data classified, and the IT structure of the organization. Below is an essential check mark that should be observed and in a checklist.

– Departmental Control Support: Establish defined rules against one one or multiple departments, data category, or user’s role.

– Context and Content Understanding: Examine file content and context to include but not limited to the sender and destination hotspot.

– Threat Detection and Control: Actions taken or any delay to act on the defined detection level should be at the time set each time defined threat parameters are breached.  

– Security Tool Collaboration: Integration enabled with SIEM, CASB, identity providers among others.

– Real Time Sensitization: Alert users the moment the Document Level Policy is triggered beyond warn’s avoidance threshold using sign targets.

– Ease of Compliance Building: Pre enable put in policies HIPPA, GDPR among others for compliance building acceleration.

Launching a DLP Program in Three Steps

  1. Map Your Data: Discover what is considered sensitive data, its location, and who has the right to access it. 
  2. Change and Organize: Implement technology to automatically tag emails and files based on the sensitivity of the information within them.
  3. Establish Policies: Implement basic policies at the start such as blocking SSNs in outbound emails and work your way up from there.
  4. Train your team: Assist employees in understanding the importance of DLP systems, thus creating a data conscientious culture.
  5. Refine, Repeat, and Monitor: DLP isn’t something that can be set up and handed off to someone else. You need to ensure periodic reviews are conducted alongside updates to your business.

DLP in a Cloud-First World after the Pandemic

The emergence of hybrid working models has obliterated the conventional IT boundaries. Employees are working from home, accessing data on personal devices, and using cloud applications with minimal supervision.

This is the reason why modern DLP should:

– Operate in both the on-premise and cloud environments, 

– Adapt to zero-trust security frameworks, and 

– Monitor actions and data in conjunction rather than in silos.  

As per Gartner, by 2026, more than 85% of organizations will use cloud-delivered DLP, moving away from hardware-based or on-premise models.  

Final Thoughts

Data Loss Prevention is not about controlling everything. It is about enabling companies to conduct business with confidence while safeguarding the most critical aspects.

With intelligent policies, an informed staff, and proper tools, smart DLP can transcend compliance obligations and transform into a competitive advantage.  

With the ever-increasing cost and complexity of data breaches, the concern is no longer if you require DLP, but when you can implement it.