Top 6 Data Loss Prevention (DLP) Strategies To Employ Now

Data loss continues to be a problem for businesses, large and small. Before the digital age, most data protection was for physical documents or leaked images of documents by employees. Now, data protection has taken on new forms. Data loss prevention (DLP) is a necessity businesses need to have at the forefront.

There have already been major data losses by top companies in 2020. Companies such as Microsoft, T-Mobile, MGM Resorts, Walgreens, and J. Crew have fallen victim to data loss via savvy cybercriminals.

And don’t think exterior threats are the most serious. In fact, 43 percent of data breaches come internally. “External breaches still account for over half of all data breaches,” explained Proofpoint, a data loss prevention company. “But internal data breaches are also increasing and account for nearly half of all data breaches.”

As effective as DLP is, many businesses still avoid adoption. However, having core data loss prevention strategies prioritized can make a big impact on the loss prevention of your business. Let’s take a closer look at a few of the best DLP strategies to employ now.

 

Make Most Sensitive Data A DLP Priority

The need for DLP does not always apply to all data. In fact, most data is not all that critical in terms of data loss and protection. For example, a manufacturing company may only need to utilize DLP for design documents. Retailers may only need DLP for PCI data. And healthcare businesses can focus on data loss prevention efforts on PHI data.

Begin by starting with your business’s most sensitive data and information. This is how you can effectively implement DLP without causing concerns of network lag and productivity decreases. By doing this, you keep your most valuable data safe, identifying needs as you scale DLP down the road.

 

Classify Data Effectively When Developing A DLP Strategy

You may be thinking that classifying sensitive data is complicated, time-consuming, or maybe even too big of a job to even consider DLP. This couldn’t be farther from the facts. One way to simplify the data classification process is to do it by context. For instance, you can use DLP to classify by source application, by data source, as well as the user who created the data.

Know When Data Is Most Vulnerable

Knowing when data is at risk is critical to protecting data and information within your business. This can be challenging, depending on the type of data needing to be protected and the risk levels for that data. When data is shared across multiple channels, as it is so commonly done daily, the risk goes up.

Data loss prevention reduces risk since data is encrypted before passing between users, devices, and networks. This makes internal and external data protection possible with DLP tools. This also includes the monitoring of data as it is shared or stored.

Have Data Loss Prevention Controls In Place

Knowing when data is at risk and monitoring data for your business is important. To take these metrics further, you need to use DLP tools to have controls in place. Managers and team supervisors need to know why in order to develop controls to reduce risk.

And controls don’t need to be complicated, especially when first having DLP implemented. You can begin by targeting the top risk behaviors, as well as having managers and team supervisors support for putting controls in place. As DLP programs grow, controls can be tweaked to mitigate new risks.

Develop Proper Training For Continued Loss Prevention

You can have the best DLP program for your business, but if your team is not trained properly, data loss risk will still exist. Once your business understands how data is being moved and used, you can develop the best training methods to keep risk at a minimum. This can mitigate data loss across all areas of the company.

The truth is, most employees don’t know that their daily actions are putting the business at risk for massive data loss via cybercriminals, or simply leaking data publicly by accident. One way data loss is reduced is by prompting employees that a potential action may be violating company security protection policies.

Implementing DLP On A Company-Wide Level

Once everything is in place and employees are trained, it is time to implement DLP on a company-wide level. The above DLP strategies are often rolled out in a pilot program first, starting with a data category that is most sensitive. When that data category is successfully implemented, other data categories are moved through the data loss prevention flow.

 

Is Your Business’ Data Protected?

This is a very important question to ask. There have been a number of major data breaches by some big-name companies. They may have had a data loss prevention plan, but if they had rolled out a strong DLP program, the risk may have been mitigated at higher levels. Protect your business with DLP strategies today.