Data leakage protection (DLP) has never been so dire than in the current age when massive volumes of digital data, generated and flowing in the business, multiply daily. This critical need is further exacerbated by the cyber threat landscape evolving in sophistication and complexity.
RSA, by revealing a finding, gives us a stark reminder of the severity of the increasing data leaks: around 45% of Americans have fallen victim to data compromise within the last five years.
In this article, we will shed light on what is data leakage protection and the need for leveraging high-end DLP systems to lock out unauthorised access from breaching the privacy of individuals.
What is Data Leakage Protection (DLP)
Data leakage protection (DLP) is a collection of cyber security practices, strategies, and technologies deployed to prevent sensitive data business stores from unauthorised access to sharing, deletion, and transmission.
The move toward digitisation is gaining momentum, resulting in a simultaneous increase in the complexity of enabling high-end data security. In addition, today’s network infrastructure is getting highly decentralised with distributed networks becoming the new norm. The current “remote work” trend doubles down the complexity, taking business operations as well as mission-critical data processing online. With this, the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) approach is getting a boost, which means employees are using the same device for both personal and professional use, making data even more vulnerable to leaks and compromise.
All these indicate that businesses must deploy stringent measures to protect data.
By enabling advanced-level and continuous monitoring, detection and governance of data movement within a company’s endpoints or network, high-end DLP tools protect the mission-critical data of a business. DLPs also help comply with data protection regulations such as GDPR. Timely tracking down of potential data leakage helps take an on-time intervention, which can, otherwise, cause businesses to face hefty repercussions – operational disruptions, execution of ransomware attacks, identity spoofing, unwanted downtimes, data breaches, privacy invasion, ultimately, loss of brand credibility, and more.
Even high-profile companies are not immune from data leakage. For example, in 2017, Equifex was hard hit by a massive data breach that exfiltrated the personal information of its customers. Events like this underline the pressing need for robust DLP system implementation to address the effects of data leakage on businesses effectively.
Types of Data Leakage
Data leakage types include:
- Accidental Data Leaks: An accidental data leakage occurs when sensitive information is mistakenly or inadvertently disclosed to unintended recipients or individuals. An example can be an email with confidential information sent to an unintended recipient due to auto-populated fields. On the other hand, an inadvertent data leak is when hackers can infiltrate your system and steal data exploiting any security misconfiguration.
- Malicious Internal User Data Leaks: Data can also be exfiltrated by ill-intended staff who may steal mission-critical business information for financial gains from hackers.
- Malicious Electronic Data Leakages: This type of data leak occurs when hackers, through advanced impersonation attacks – phishing or spoofing – trick users into downloading malware onto their devices or clicking on malicious links. Once malware is injected into a user’s system, it is used to steal confidential data, breach system security, or execute further cyber attacks. In impersonation techniques, hackers exploit human vulnerabilities, social engineering tactics, etc., to bypass implemented security measures on a system.
Common Causes Of Data Leakage
Here are some of the most common causes of data leakages:
Bad infrastructure
Data stored in systems running on a poorly configured or maintained infrastructure can easily be compromised. Insufficient security measures or erroneous settings and permissions while setting up the system initially can allow unauthorised users to access and steal data. On the other hand, inadequate maintenance, such as unpatched software, acts as a gateway for hackers to invade the system and expose data.
Weak Password
Using easily guessable passwords or the same password for multiple accounts act as an entry point for hackers to invade your accounts and ultimately data compromise. Augment the security posture of your accounts and lock out unauthorised access by using hard-to-crack complex and unique passwords for each account along with multi-factor authentication (MFA).
Human Error
Negligent actions by staff, such as mistakenly sending out emails containing critical information to the wrong recipients or misconfigured security settings can cause exposure to data.
Third-party risks
Sometimes companies share data with third-party services to help with data processing or storage. These external services, if they don’t have proper security services implemented on their systems, can make this data vulnerable to breach or leakage.
Social Engineering Tactics
Scammers may exploit social engineering tactics such as phishing, smishing, pretexting, etc., to inject malware or trick users into divulging sensitive information or compromising security.
Components of a DLP strategy
Future-focused businesses often deploy the following tools as part of their comprehensive and layered DLP strategy. Integration of these tools forms a highly effective data protection framework that identifies and mitigates potential data leakage, breaches, and vulnerabilities across all data transmission channels and endpoints where a business exists.
- Data Loss Prevention Software: Any possibility of data leaks or transmission can be identified by installing DLP software on the network endpoint, workstation, and servers at the worker’s end. It does this by continuously evaluating the routers connected to the network for any suspicious data.
- Email Filtering: Email filtering prevents the transmission of specific types of confidential data, for example, records on financial transactions, PII, etc., via email channels. These filters scan incoming and outgoing emails for any sensitive content that can cause non-compliance with regulatory standards, and in case any suspicious activity is detected, filters immediately notify designated authorities to take action.
- Endpoint Protection: Installed at the workers’ end, this software helps evade data leaks from the devices they use. These tools protect workers’ laptops, tablets or mobile devices from unauthorised access to their storage systems and monitor activities in search of any potential data leakages/breaches.
How Do DLP Solutions Work
Data Discovery and Data Classification
The first step is to pinpoint essential data within an organisation and categorise it, such as PII, transaction records, personal documents, etc. Different data profiling tools, and metadata analysis software use techniques such as pattern matching, data profiling, keyword detection, etc., to facilitate this step. It helps organisations to the level of stringency they need to ensure while implementing DLP measures.
Content Inspection
Next comes scanning the context and content of data being transmitted. While content analysis scrutinises network traffic or the data a message contains, context analyses its external factors such as message size, format, source, etc. Content analysis helps pinpoint anomalies or predefined data patterns, indicating the possibility of any policy violation or unauthorised data transmission. On the other hand, with context analysis, you can get an in-depth insight into potential risks and the data transmission process. Techniques such as data fingerprinting, keyword scanning, etc., are used by email scanning tools, Deep packet inspection (DPI), and data loss prevention software for content inspection.
Data Leakage Prevention Policy Enforcement
A comprehensive and thought-out policy should be set out that defines how confidential information should be stored, retained, or processed. These policies are enforced and used by DLP solutions while assessing and tracking data transmission, access attempts, etc. Data blocking, automated responses, incident response plans, etc., help enforce policies. You can use various encryption tools, automated remediation tools, and incident response software for this purpose.
Monitoring Data in Motion, at Rest, and in Use
Data leak prevention systems are specially developed to facilitate the monitoring, detection, and protection of data at each processing level, including data in motion, data at rest, and data in use. The aim is to ensure identifying and blocking any unauthorised access to data that can lead to data leakage or data breach.
Response and Remediation
DLP solutions should count on the predefined actions and response to anything suspicious and take immediate actions – notifying authorities, blocking data transfer, encrypting data, etc.
Reporting and Compliance
The last step is to generate reports based on the findings about policy violations, security incidents, compliance status, etc. It helps companies identify the areas of improvement and take necessary measures to augment their security posture. Businesses frequently use auditing, automated policy violation alerts, etc., with various reporting and compliance tools to facilitate this step.
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