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As a lot of businesses shifted to remote working mode due to COVID-19, the concern of data protection grew bigger. Not every company is able to provide working computers to employees to work from home, so many use their personal computers, which don’t always have data loss prevention software installed.
In this article, we will look into the importance of Data Loss Prevention (DLP) and discuss how to select DLP products.
If you are a company that deals and stores a lot of sensitive data about your partners and employees then the data protection is a primary concern for you. But a lot of companies do not realize the sensitivity of the data they own and essentially control, and that lack of awareness leads to data leaks and loss.
Anything from HR records to annual financial reports is considered data and if it falls into wrong hands then you will get into trouble and in some cases even big lawsuits and face serious charges. To avoid these inconveniences and problems, you need to take cybersecurity seriously and dedicate some time and finances to ensure that any data that comes your way is protected.
What is DLP?
DLP, which is short for Data Loss Prevention, is a goal that entails protecting data from any possible breaches. There are a lot of software solutions that companies can use for DLP but before we get to discussing some of the big ones in the industry, let’s see what you should know about your data in order to protect it.
Some questions to ask yourself and your IT team are the following:
What kind of data does our organization have? (e.g. compliance governed, intellectual property, personal records, bookkeeping documents, etc.)
Who can access the data?
Who should be granted access to the data?
What is the procedure of getting access to the data?
How is our company’s data stored?
Before you start panicking because you remembered that there is a stack of documents sitting on a shelf that can technically be accessed by anyone, you should know that not every data and document in your company has to have top-notch security. These questions should help you determine what data needs protection. Anything that has classified or sensitive information is a must for protection, whereas the records of your employee’s birthdays are certainly not a priority.
*Generally speaking, DLP consists of three stages: *
Backup - backup your data, so when it is lost, it can be easily restored.
Encryption - by encrypting your data, you prevent the person who gets or steals your data from being able to read it. The data will technically be “lost” but it won’t be accessible to others.
Monitoring - monitoring allows you to be proactive and if anything happens or is to happen, you can respond immediately.
As a legal entity, you have to have a data loss prevention policy, which is a set of guidelines for your organization that outlines the cybersecurity and data retention procedures. This piece of the document should detail how you intend to protect the data. Given the increasing demand for data and ongoing breaches, it is critical that you have a DLP policy in place.
*DLP software solutions *
Data loss protection is not a manual process. There are software solutions built for these purposes. With DLP software you can expect the protection of the following:
Intellectual Property such as design documents, project plans, patent applications, etc.
Corporate Data such as financial records and statements, employee records, user logins, etc.
Customer Data such as end-user logins, credit card numbers, social security numbers, medical data, etc.
Each DLP software is different, so you should check the features of specific software for the details.
Choosing a DLP solution is an important decision. The future of your data will depend on it, so you need to make sure that you have done your research and consulted with professionals before you commit to any software solution.
Your IT team or a hired professional will give you guidance but there are some basic things you should know about DLP solutions that will help you ask the right questions and choose the right software. For instance:
Does the software protect your essential data stores?
Does the software have an endpoint, server, and cloud coverage?
Is the software able to classify the data or be integrated with other classification systems?
Some other questions that you can ask the DLP Software Provider:
How quickly is your software installed and how long does it take for it to start working?
What are the risks associated with your solution (if any)?
Do you have innovation associations with [structured as well as unstructured information vendors]?
What sort of encryption innovation do you support?
What technologies does your software use to support operating systems like Windows, macOS, or Linux?
Go back to the section, where we defined DLP and take a look at the list of questions to ask yourself when deciding on determining what data at your company needs to be protected. The answers to those questions will give you an idea of the scope of the data that you need the solution to protect. Based on that you can choose a solution that has proven experience with protecting that kind of data and in your industry.
Most DLP software solutions charge a monthly fee and if you are a small organization with a limited budget then the price is a factor that is worth considering. There are a lot of options in the market today, so you should be able to find a reliable data loss protection software at an affordable rate.
