Over the years DLP security i.e Data loss prevention security has gained popularity to find options to reduce the risk of data leaks outside the organizations. The write-up explains what is DLP in cyber security and everything you need to know about its works.
What is DLP?
DLP Data Loss Prevention is a technology that performs content inspection and analysis of different data shared through messaging apps (instant message apps or e-mails), in motion through the network, used on an endpoint device that is managed, or even data at rest on cloud storage or applications. The solutions provided by DLP cyber security execute the responses based upon the predefined rules to address exposure or leaks of data that is sensitive.
Data Loss prevention technology is categorized on the basis of Enterprise and Integrated formats. The Enterprise DLP is comprehensive software for servers & desktops, physical & virtual appliances to monitor the email & network traffic, or soft appliances to recover data.
Whereas the Integrated DLP software is restricted to Secure Email gateways (SEGs), Secure Web gateways i.e SWGs, ECM (Enterprise Content Management) platforms, tools for data discovery & classification, CASBs (Cloud Access Security Brokers), and Email Encryption Products.
Also Read: 5 Common Cyber Security Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
How does Data Loss Prevention Work?
To understand DLP security solutions it is important to learn the difference between contextual analysis and content awareness. For better understanding consider content as a letter and context as an envelope.
The content Awareness process includes capturing an envelope to peer at the content inside it and analyze it. Whereas the context involves external factors like header, format, size, or anything that is included in the content. The basic idea behind awareness of content is to gain intelligence on content context should be used but it should not be restricted to a particular context.
As the envelope opens to process content the following techniques can be used for data loss prevention security controls and content analysis
1. Rule-Based or Regular Expressions
It is one of the most commonly used techniques used for DLP analysis to analyze content such as Card numbers (16-digit), Specific security numbers, and other content that has pre-defined rules. The technique is an amazing alternate for first-pass filters but is prone to false-positive reports.
2. Exact File Match
In this technique, the contents of files are not matched but hashes are matched against the fingerprints. It provides comparatively low false-positive reports.
3. Database Fingerprinting
The technique is often referred to as Exact Data Matching. It scans the exact match of data from the database or cloud. It is a good choice to make while working on structured data.
4. Statistical Analysis
The techniques use ML and other methods to trigger violations of policy or rules within the secure content. It requires large data, else the results are more prone to false positives or even false negatives.
5. Pre-built Categories
The categories are pre-developed with specific rules or dictionaries for data that is sensitive to leaks like credit card numbers, etc.
6. Conceptual or Lexicon
The conceptual technique uses a set of rules or dictionaries to display alerts on unstructured data that cannot defy simple categorizations.
7. Partial Doc Matching
As the name describes the partial document matching techniques searches for the partial or complete match as described by the users for files like forms filled by multiple users.
Also Read: List of Top Most Countries with Best Cyber Security Measures
Closing Lines
That’s a wrap from our side on Data Loss prevention. Since Data security is one of the major concerns for users as the dependency on cloud storage increases it is important to know data loss prevention technologies. We hope the above article helped you understand what is DLP security and how it works. If you have any questions for us drop them below in the comment section. Also, for more informative tech blogs subscribe to our newsletter and never miss an update.
