What is Data Loss prevention (DLP)?

Data loss prevention is the ability or practice of preventing exfiltration of sensitive data or critical information. Organizations uses DLP to protect and secure data in order to comply with regulation and prevent data breaches.

What is Data Breach?

Data breach is an incident that exposes confidential or protected information. This might involve Credit/debit card number, Personal Identifiable information, Personal health information, passwords or emails.A data breach can be intentional or unintentional.

Intentional Data Breach: Intentional data breach occurs when a cyber attacker hacks into an individual or company’s system for the purpose of accessing proprietary or personal information. An example is an intrusion of the computer via malware, phishing or other techniques.
Unintentional/Accidental Data Breach: A data breach is said to be unintentional when it occurs by the negligence of an employee. For example, employees exposing sensitive data via email and file sharing.

Causes of Data Breach

The major causes of Data breaches-

Insider threats – a malicious insider, or an attacker who has compromised a privileged user account, abuses their permissions and attempts to move data outside the organization.

Cyber Attackers: One of the targets for cyber attackers is sensitive data. Attackers can penetrate security perimeters using various techniques and gain access to sensitive data.

Unintentional Data exposure: Data leaks as a result of employees negligence who lose sensitive information/data in the public by failing to adhere to organization’s security policies .

Importance of Data Loss Prevention

Data protection is critical as loss of sensitive can cause havoc to your organizations. In oder to protect data in your organization, Data loss prevention is a necessity.

Data loss prevention automatically encrypts confidential data to prevent data loss.
It protects personally identifiable information and help in regulation compliance
Enforcement of DLP technology enables monitoring of the location and usage of data according to the laid out DLP policies.
It helps prevent accidental information sharing.
When used in conjunction with complementary controls, DLP helps to prevent the accidental exposure of confidential information across all devices. Wherever data lives, in transit on the network, at rest in storage, or in use, DLP can monitor it and significantly reduce the risk of data loss.