In a recent article by Security Boulevard, which looked at the biggest cybersecurity threats for 2020, data loss – specifically the insider threat – was the #1 concern for security experts.
Most agree that when it comes to Data Loss Prevention, or DLP, an effective DLP strategy is required in order to protect yourself against the threat of data loss.
In this post, we’ll take a look at the different DLP strategies out there, and how you can choose the most effective DLP strategy for your organization.
DLP Strategies
When it comes to your DLP strategy, there are 6 key areas that need to be addressed:
- Perform a Risk Analysis
- Classify and Prioritize
- Identify Key Risk Factors
- Re-look at Controls
- Training and Communication
- Technology
Let’s look at these DLP strategies in more detail:
Perform a Risk Analysis: this step includes looking at the type of data flowing through your organization and assessing where the risks to your data lie. This includes where and how data is stored, who has access to data, and where security vulnerabilities might exist. By the end of this step, you should have an overall picture of the data your organization has access to.
Classify and Prioritize: the next step is to classify and prioritize this data. If you’re using an older DLP product, this step can be highly resource-intensive. If you’re using a smart DLP product like ITsMine Beyond DLP™️, then this step does not have to be overly burdensome as the product does the heavy lifting for you.
You’ll also want to prioritize data. Some data is highly sensitive, while some data is important yet not critical. This step helps in ensuring that priority is given to protecting your most sensitive data. Of course, your overarching goal is to keep all data protected.
Identify Key Risk Factors: Risk factors vary from organization to organization, and even within one particular organization. For example, risk factors can be based on the likelihood of various threats such as error, deliberate internal data exfiltration, external attack and so on. It can also be based on where data is motion and where it’s at rest. For example data behind a firewall is more secure than data sitting on employees’ own devices.
Re-look at Controls: controls are an effective way of controlling who has access and to what data. When assessing your DLP strategy, it’s critical to revisit your controls to ensure that controls are effective, are not unnecessarily interfering with business operations, and are kept up-to-date.
Training and Communication: this is one of the most important elements of a successful DLP strategy. DLP strategy needs buy-in from the entire organization, not just the C-suite. Every employee should be trained and educated around the importance of data loss prevention, and their role in ensuring that the company stays protected.
Policies and decisions should be clearly communicated to your team, including the reasons for particular policies. It’s sometimes easier for employees to see policies “handed down” as unnecessary, and to circumvent these policies when it’s inconvenient for them. An example is with secure emails: if the process of sending and receiving secure emails is cumbersome (though highly secure), employees who do not feel an ownership stake in data loss prevention will be tempted to send critical information using their private email.
Technology: no modern DLP strategy is complete without the use of advanced technology to secure the organization’s data. While many DLP products exist, they have generally not been as effective as they should be – the multiple high-profile data breaches that have hit the news recently are a testament to this. Choosing the best DLP solution is the cornerstone of your DLP strategy.
ITsMine Beyond DLP™️
Taking these DLP strategy insights into account, the first place to start is with your DLP solution. Many DLP solutions have got the reputation of being expensive, difficult to implement, resource-intensive to maintain, and critically, ineffective.
It’s with this in mind that we created ITsMine Beyond DLP™️. This is the new generation of DLP solution, that’s built for organizations wanting a DLP solution that’s inexpensive, intuitive, easy to implement and most importantly, highly effective.
The solution, unlike others, solves the problem of data loss with a proactive approach rather than a reactive one (which is too little, too late). It’s a plug-and-play product that protects against internal and external threats automatically.
ITsMine Beyond DLP™️ stores all company data in a central cloud location and knows when data is used and when it’s returned. It strategically scatters SoftwareMines™ to protect critical data, sends alerts and gives critical forensic information even after data exfiltration.
Choosing the most effective DLP Strategy
As we’ve seen, the most effective DLP strategy combines a number of factors to mitigate the huge threat of data loss. When it comes to rolling out your DLP strategy, your first port of call should be your DLP solution – and if you’re looking for a DLP solution that provides data protection within the company and beyond, utilizes AI to enable automatic responses to internal and external attacks, provides full visibility and control over both internal and external threats and offers real-time employee education – then ITsMine Beyond DLP™️ is for you.
For more information or to get in touch, just reach out to us.