Loss of data can bankrupt a company. Here’s how to create a data loss prevention policy that will protect your business without bottlenecking your growth.
Join the DZone community and get the full member experience. Did you know that employee errors cause nearly 88 percent of all data breaches? Or that the average data breach costs companies $4.24 million per incident? For large companies, that number can soar higher in a hurry, depending on the data lost. Luckily, creating a data loss prevention (DLP) policy can help you protect your data. With the right guidelines in place, you can: Data loss prevention serves as a roadmap to help you store, protect, and share data. With the proper software, hardware, and employee training, you can keep sensitive data from being compromised. Your policy should also guide your enforcement and prevention processes. In the modern business world, data flows constantly between employees and outside parties. Without an effective DLP policy in place, it’s difficult to keep track of (and control) your data. One reason for this challenge is the sheer number of communication channels your employees may use, such as their: Additionally, employees often share data in several portals. Common channels include their laptops, phones, and the cloud. And as new ways to use data crop up in the work-from-home era, securing your data becomes that much more important. Creating a data loss prevention policy requires you to understand your business and the threats it faces. The best policies are drafted based on a thorough analysis of your unique security needs. Then, you need a specific set of enforceable rules that apply to each level of your business. For instance, let’s say an employee uploads a sensitive file to Facebook messenger. Your software may stop the upload from going through and report the incident to the employee’s manager. Then, the software can generate a report and flag it for further review. But software and similar technologies are only one component of data loss prevention. For effective security, you also need an IT security team, the right hardware, and proper protocols in place. With these tools, you can deal with whatever violations may occur (accidental or otherwise). DLP policies help you fulfill three main functions: To meet these goals, you need a DLP security and auditing policy in place. Then, when a suspicious event crops up, you’ll be well-prepared to investigate and take the proper actions. The following steps can help you create an effective data loss prevention policy. Before you can set up a policy, you need to have the proper personnel on hand. The right people will have expertise in fields such as: Some regulations, like the GDPR, even require you to consult with employees trained in data protection. Once you have the experts on hand, it’s time to identify what data you need to protect. You can use a data discovery and classification engine to scan your databases and give you insights. Start by evaluating the different types of data you use and whether they fall under government protection. (Such as medical records that need to be protected under HIPAA standards.) You’ll also want to identify any business-sensitive intellectual property and trade secrets. Next, it’s time to evaluate the risk associated with each type of data were it to leak. For instance, losing information about your company’s internal finances may carry less legal risk than a hacker stealing thousands of customer Social Security Numbers. It’s also important to consider when your data is most at risk. When you distribute data to external devices, share it with partners, or upload or download using the cloud, you inject different levels and types of risk into your data structure.
