As a business leader, there’s not much more important than protecting your data, especially when that data contains sensitive and personal information of clients and consumers. From credit card and financial information to social security numbers, protected health information and personal identifiers, there is so much information out there that needs to be protected.
What Is Data Loss Prevention?
Microsoft defines data loss prevention as “a security solution that identifies and helps prevent unsafe or inappropriate sharing, transfer, or use of sensitive data.” This solution can help your company monitor and protect sensitive information across on-premises systems, cloud-based locations, and endpoint devices. It can also assist organizations in maintaining government and/or industry regulations such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
For those not in the IT industry, it is the monitoring of data within an organization. The main goal is to prevent employees from accidentally or intentionally sending sensitive information outside the company. This is critical for organizations within certain fields that are required by government or industry regulations to protect unauthorized users from accessing sensitive data.
Data That Should Be Protected
Among other business information and client data, some of the main pieces of information that should be monitored and protected are the following:
- Employee/Consumer Social Security Numbers
- Credit card numbers
- Bank account numbers
- Customer names and addresses
- Your email information
Benefits of Data Loss Prevention
Besides the main goal of preventing sensitive data from falling into the wrong hands, data loss prevention has a few specific benefits.
One of the main benefits we see for our healthcare and dental care clients is an assurance that compliance and regulation requirements are being met according to HIPAA. Failure to comply with these government regulations could be met with legal and financial consequences.
Data loss prevention is also beneficial to protect sensitive information from being leaked to competitors, prevent confidential info from being uploaded to the cloud, and prevent employees from downloading sensitive info to their personal devices.
3 Steps of Data Loss Prevention (DLP)
To implement a successful data loss prevention plan, there are three areas to consider – preventative, detective, and corrective.
Preventive DLP involves identifying and blocking sensitive or personal data before it leaves your organization. Detective DLP oversees data transmissions for signs of an unauthorized data leak, such as when a user attempts to send sensitive information outside your organization’s network. Corrective DLP helps an organization recover from a security breach by restoring and containing the damage caused by the incident.
Contact us for more information on our compliance and security services. We will analyze your vulnerabilities and create a custom and comprehensive plan for your business cyber security.