Email Data Loss Prevention

Email Data Loss Prevention, or content security solutions are designed to protect sensitive information from accidental or intentional data loss through email. These solutions can detect, monitor, and block any sensitive information from being sent outside the organization's network. Without robust controls, sensitive or valuable data can be leaked accidentally or targeted by malicious actors looking to exfiltrate it for monetary gain. And these threats can come from within the organization (e.g., insider threat) or from the outside in the form of ransomware and other cyberattacks.

The loss of sensitive or valuable data is something any organization, regardless of size, industry, or geography, must avoid. Data privacy and data protection laws, such as CPPA, GDPR, HIPAA, the Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Act and others, require organizations to maintain secure environments and always apply the appropriate level of data protection, no matter where it’s located or how it’s shared. Failure to keep data secure can result in fines for non-compliance.

To avoid data leakage and exfiltration, organizations apply Data Loss Prevention (DLP) practices and tools to safeguard their business-critical data, often with a Secure Email Gateway appliance. DLP focuses on minimizing the risk to the organization by detecting and preventing unauthorized disclosure before the data breach occurs.

Image

When looking at how to prevent data loss, technology is often the last line of defense. Its role is to apply the organization’s data security policies consistently over all egress points, identify possible violations, and take the appropriate remedial actions. Traditional DLP solutions are inflexible in the way they operate, making them difficult to configure and implement. 

Typically, the solutions “stop and block” any action deemed to have risk implications, often incorrectly mistaking legitimate daily actions as an exfiltration or data loss threat. This generates large numbers of false positives which can easily overwhelm the IT security staff who need to action the alerts and frustrate users who can’t work productively.

The solution understands both content and context and adapts its behavior accordingly. Policies can be set so that certain individuals, teams, or departments have more flexibility than others. For example:

• The CEO is authorized to send sensitive data to the CFO, so the data is automatically encrypted to protect it while in motion.
• When the HR team sends sensitive data to an unknown third party, the solution recognizes that this could be an unauthorized transfer. But rather than block the communication, it automatically removes the sensitive data from the message, allowing a safe version to continue unhindered.
• The user is alerted to the fact that a policy violation occurred, but business is not interrupted. This significantly reduces the numbers of false positives that occur and removes any risk.

This automated process is made possible by a unique technology called adaptive redaction.

If you need to better see and protect critical data and IP, Fortra offers additional market-leading endpoint data loss prevention to complement our email security solutions. 

1. Endpoint DLP provides the most robust coverage and control for Windows, macOS, and Linux endpoints in order to ensure there are no gaps in your data protection strategy. It does so by capturing and recording events at the system, user, and data levels, and allows you to fine tune responses based on these various factors. With SaaS deployment options and managed services, Digital Guardian deploys rapidly and delivers fast results.
2. Other enterprise DLP solutions can be deployed alongside data classification tools and software for managed file transfers (MFT), such as the Secure ICAP Gateway.. During the process, adaptive DLP recognizes the different data classification labels and automatically enforces the appropriate policy. It also ensures labeling remains in place as the data moves throughout the network or leaves the organization. Finally, files being sent or received securely through MFT benefit from an additional layer of DLP and protection from cybersecurity threats