10 Ways Data Loss Prevention Benefits Your Company
So, how does data loss prevention benefit your company? Here are ten ways.
1. You Gain Real-Time Visibility Into Your Data
DLP technology allows your IT department to view the flow of your data in real-time. This might sound expensive at first, but consider the alternative. Without the right software in place, your security staff would need to constantly search manually for sensitive files and move or encrypt them as needed. This simply isn’t practical at any kind of scale. At some point, your information security needs to be as automated as any other aspect of your business. By viewing your data flow in real-time, you not only build a more secure network, but your IT staff can even use this information to identify inefficiencies that are costing you money.
2. Your Organization Needs a Plan For Internal Threats
We’d all like to think that the main threat to our data is external. The bad actors are “out there,” somewhere in the wild, and as long as you’ve got a good firewall, you’re safe, right?
If only that were the case. According to a
2021 Verizon report, over 20% of data breaches result from insider attacks. In most cases, the motive is financial; someone is selling customer information or trade secrets on the black market. In far fewer cases, the motive is personal; someone is angry because they didn’t get promoted, were denied a raise, etc.
Regardless of motive, insider attacks are among the hardest to detect because the activity often looks legitimate. Someone is accessing sensitive data using the proper credentials, often from a company computer. Good DLP practices can help to limit this threat. For instance, you can prevent files from being transferred to thumb drives or lock out a computer instantly when suspicious behavior is detected.
3. Breaches Cost More the Longer They Go Undetected
Data breaches can spell doom for any company that experiences one. Whether due to fines, the loss of customers, or reputational damage,
60 percent of companies go out of business within six months of a data breach being identified. But breaches cost more the longer they go on. If detected early, your business may only suffer minor damage. For example, when a Boston hospital employee lost a laptop with information on nearly 2,000 patients, they promptly reported the breach. The result was a
$40,000 fine and some bad publicity. This is not a perfect result but is hardly backbreaking for a major city hospital.
Unfortunately, not all breaches are detected this quickly. According to a
2019 Ponemon Institute report, the average data breach remains unidentified for 206 days. At that point, the average cost is twice the cost of a breach that’s detected immediately. This only makes sense. The longer a breach is unidentified, the more opportunities hackers will have to abuse that data or harvest more. For example, if your bank loses 500 customers’ account numbers, you can notify those customers and issue them with new accounts. But if you lose 5,000 account numbers over the course of six months, and many of those numbers have been used by fraudsters, you could be liable for millions of dollars in losses.
4. DLP Helps You Stay Compliant
A few years ago, data security was a lightly regulated area. As long as you were comfortable with your level of exposure, you could be as strict or as relaxed as you want to be. But new regulations like the European GDPR and the New York Cybersecurity Requirements are putting best practices into writing – and enacting penalties for organizations who fail to comply.
With more and more data being stored in a digital form, it’s become impossible for companies to comply with the use of human labor alone. There are simply too many files being written and accessed too frequently for even the largest IT departments to manage the task. DLP automates the compliance process, so you don’t have to worry about hefty fines.
5. DLP Reduces Your Exposure From Third-Party Devices
Allowing employees to use their own devices for work can be a great cost-saving measure. In fact, it’s so popular that it even has a name: bring your own device, or BYOD. But BYOD policies aren’t without their risks. If malware is installed on an employee’s device when it’s not on the network, that malware can infect your organization the next time the employee comes to work. DLP systems have special protocols in place to protect you from these viruses.
There’s a newer, similar threat that companies need to be aware of. Internet of Things, or IoT devices, are often not as secure as the other devices on your network. In many cases, hackers can use an IoT device, like a WiFi speaker, as a back door to gain access to your data. DLP software keeps this from happening.
6. You Can Monitor Your Employees
We’ve already touched on the risk of insider threats to your data security. In addition to preventing suspicious activity, DLP software allows you to monitor it as well. The software can generate reports of unusual behavior and send those to your security team. In most cases, it turns out the behavior was well-intentioned; for example, an employee emails a document to their personal account so they can work through the weekend. That might be cause for retraining, but it’s something any good employee might do. Alternatively, it might turn out that the employee was trying to steal data. In that case, your team can gather evidence so the employee can be terminated.
7. You’ll Be Protected from Cloud-Based Threats
Nowadays, we rely on cloud-based applications more than ever. Whether it’s holding meetings via Zoom or sharing files on Dropbox or Google Docs, much of that data isn’t actually being stored on company servers which helps cut costs. Still, it’s counterproductive when unencrypted sensitive data gets out into the wild. DLP software can be integrated with cloud-based applications to deal with confidential data. Sensitive information can be redacted; the files can be encrypted or blocked from cloud transfer altogether.
8. You Can Monitor Your Endpoints
The main risk for any network is at its endpoints – anywhere data is transferred between the company network and the broader web. Inside your network, you control your data. Once that data leaves the network, it’s “in the wild,” and you can no longer control what happens with it. DLP software monitors your endpoints, including physical endpoints like workstations and virtual endpoints like outgoing and incoming email. This stops many forms of harmful activity before they even start.
9. You’ll Spend Less on IT
There’s an old saying that you need to spend money to make money. DLP systems can be pricey to purchase and implement. But once in place, your company will save massive amounts of manpower. This means less money spent on IT staff and more money for profitable parts of your business.
10. Your Customers Will Trust You More
By taking proactive steps to protect your data, you aren’t just shielding yourself from fines and liability; you’re also doing your job as a company to keep your customers’ information safe. This gives you something far more valuable than any short-term expense: people’s trust. No matter what business you’re in, trust is the most important currency of all.