Data is the most treasured resource of any organization in today’s world. This makes it imperative for any company to invest in proper security measures and not grant an open access to everyone. The organization needs to protect sensitive data at rest, in- transit and in-use along with this they also need to ensure that the data is protected on all devices and on the network. This is becoming more and more difficult now-a-days as many organizations face a challenge of keeping track of all their data as the employees use multiple devices and also the data is stored at different locations such as desktops, smartphones, cloud, etc, Also, multiple communication channels are used such as emails, social media, shared online folders. All this leaves the organizations unable to track the sensitive data and prevent data loss.
For all this, an End Point Data Loss Prevention Strategy is what is needed to protect your endpoints or at least mitigate the damage caused by leaked/lost data. Data Loss Prevention Tools use rules to classify and protect the sensitive data so that users cannot accidently or maliciously exfiltrate sensitive data from the organization. It works to monitor data at endpoints and network. It protects data-at-rest, in-motion or in-use. Some of the main uses of a DLP solution are:
COMPLIANCE: Organizations collect and store a lot of Personally Identifiable Information (PII), Payment Details, Health Information, etc., all this needs to adhere to compliance regulations. A DLP solution helps to follow these regulations by identifying, classifying and monitoring sensitive data.
IP PROTECTION: It helps the organization in classifying its intellectual property and protecting it against unauthorized access and exfiltration of trade secrets.
DATA VISIBILTY: The DLP solution also helps an organization to track data-at-rest, in-motion on endpoints, networks and cloud. This provides organizations with more visibility into the types of data stored on the endpoints or in the cloud.
There are basically four types of DLP solution –
Endpoint DLP: This solution is installed on endpoints such as Desktops, Laptops, Servers, Smartphones, and Printers etc, to monitor and protect the data residing on them. This protects the data on these endpoints even if the endpoint is offline or connected to a public network. It also prevents transferring of sensitive data on to USB’s.
Network DLP: In this, the DLP solution is applied on the network and monitors the data-in-transit. All the incoming, outgoing data can be monitored, protected and blocked from any device connected to the network.
Email DLP: Here, the DLP solution monitors and filters emails based on certain keywords and helps to check data leakage through emails.
Cloud DLP: A cloud DLP solution monitors and protects the data stored in the cloud. Hence, it protects whatever is stored in the cloud like emails, documents, etc.
At this point, I would like to introduce our product – inDefend which is a Unified End-Point Monitoring Platform that offers full protection against cybercrime and monitors the behaviour and the productivity of the employees too.
- It determines the Primary Data Protection Objective – a thorough analysis is done after which it identifies where all the sensitive data is stored and forms a shield around it with controlled access to a selected few.
- This is a centralized program that functions from a single dashboard. It has a unique work flow analysis that works across the various departments of the organization. It defines policies that governs the organization’s data.
- The data is classified under various heads as Internal, Confidential, Public, PII, Intellectual property, etc and data handling and remediation policies are set at each stage to reduce the risks of data loss.
- It protects the data on the go and is not dependent on a corporate network to function. This program is applied at the computer level and it continues to protect the data in real-time whether the employee is working on-premises or remotely.
- All the portable devices are controlled by it. As an Endpoint DLP it enables the administrators to choose different levels of trust for devices based on specific criteria. This enables them to allow only company devices to connect to devices or block them all. It also offers enforced encryption for USB’s and uses the OCR technology.
- The product offers full data visibility at endpoints i.e content discovery capabilities on end points. It identifies if the employee has stored company sensitive data on his/her computer and can take remediation steps such as enforced encryption or request to delete the same so as to prevent data loss.
- It keeps a check on all the outflow of data via any channel such as emails, printers, internet, USB’s. It shadow logs all the emails and maintains a daily record. Real time alerts are sent on possibility of any data breach.
- A daily record of all the Server Activity is maintained.
- It offers all these features in Cloud Storage too.
inDefend, is one product that offers all the above services not only at Endpoints but across the Networks, Printer Gateways and Cloud Storage too. And all this is possible even if the endpoint is not connected to the network and is OFFLINE!
