DLP, or Data Loss Prevention, refers to a set of technologies and policies designed to protect a company’s sensitive information against leaks, loss or unauthorised transfers.
Its objective is simple: to prevent confidential data from leaving the company’s environment when it should not.
A data leak is not necessarily caused by a cyberattack. An employee may, for example, accidentally send a confidential document to the wrong recipient, forward business files to a personal email address or copy sensitive information onto a USB drive. A malicious insider may also deliberately attempt to extract data.
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A DLP solution can monitor how data is used, stored and shared. It can identify certain types of sensitive information and automatically apply rules defined by the company.
For example, if an employee attempts to send a file containing confidential information to a personal email address, the DLP solution can generate an alert or block the message altogether.
DLP can protect many different types of data, including personal information, financial data, customer files, internal documents, intellectual property and confidential business information.
For a DLP strategy to be effective, a company first needs to know which data must be protected and where it is located. It can then define appropriate rules based on the level of sensitivity.
Data Loss Prevention is therefore an important layer of a cybersecurity strategy: it is no longer only about stopping cybercriminals from getting into the company, but also about preventing sensitive data from leaving without authorisation.