What is Data Leak Prevention (DLP)?

What is Data Leak Prevention (DLP)?

Research shows that data loss is a major worldwide problem. A compilation of data leaks from the first quarter of 2020 to the fourth quarter of 2023 shows continuous data leaks for online users. Q4 2023 resulted in data exposure from breaches affecting more than eight million records worldwide. Data loss is costly for a business. A 2023 report on the Cost of a Data Breach from IBM found that the average cost of a breach in 2023 is $4.45 million, a 15% increase in the last three years. Costs include remediation of the issue, regulatory non-compliance fines, and other intangibles like loss of reputation. Data loss prevention is more complicated when employees work from home or remotely; according to research, 20% of organizations have experienced data exposure caused by remote workers. One way to help reduce the risks associated with data loss is to use a data loss prevention (DLP) solution. Advanced DLP solutions, like EncryptTitan, can be delivered using a managed service model (MSP), making them affordable and accessible to organizations of all sizes.

TitanHQ explores DLP, why an MSP needs a DLP offering, and how a DLP solution, like EncryptTitan, is vital for data loss prevention.

Data Loss Prevention

Data leak prevention or data loss prevention (DLP) is implementing cybersecurity controls to protect corporate data from being leaked, corrupted, damaged, deleted, unauthorized changed, stolen, or corrupted. Data loss prevention can be considered a firewall or a "DLP firewall." The firewall surrounds the data and the method of sharing the data, e.g., an email, and protection policies follow the data when it is shared via email, etc.

Strategies for data loss prevention depend on the corporation, compliance requirements, and the network environment. Every corporation has its strategies and policies around how data is used. However, preventing data loss requires organizations to use specific best practices proven to stop threats and mitigate damages during a compromise. These include data encryption, phishing prevention, and security awareness training.

Using proper data leak prevention strategies, organizations can make it much harder for attackers to steal data, and monitoring systems will be much more effective at detecting suspicious network traffic.

What are the Ways that Data Loss Occurs in an Enterprise?

The extended enterprise with multiple cloud environments, BYOD, and remote workers creates the perfect environment for data leaks to occur. Typically, three modes of leakage or exposure result in data breaches:

Accidental Loss: almost all (93%) of organizations are concerned about human error causing data loss. Accidents can result in exposed data through various mediums, including emails and social media platforms. A 2022 study from the World Economic Forum found that human error is behind 95% of security breaches. Email miss-delivery is an example of how sensitive data can leak outside a company. For instance, according to the Verizon 2021 Data Breach Investigation Report (DBIR), in the financial sector, 55% of errors were due to the mis-delivery of emails.

Everyone knows someone who has accidentally sent a sensitive email to someone who shouldn't be on a cc list. According to researchers, 60% of organizations have experienced data loss because of misdirected emails. Phishing is another area of human error. Employees clicking on a phishing link can lead to credential theft and sensitive data loss.

Malicious Insiders Causing Data Loss: Accidents are bad enough, but when an employee deliberately steals or exposes data, this can have a catastrophic impact. According to the 2023 Cost of Insider Threats Global Report by Ponemon Institute, the average cost of an insider threat is $16.2 million. Disgruntled employees and ex-employees are potential targets for recruitment by cybercriminals looking to steal company secrets. A recent high-profile example was an Apple employee who was accused of sending multiple emails and messages to a cybercriminal; the emails revealed Apple trade secrets.

External Threat Attackers: Hackers love data, which they can sell via dark web marketplaces and use to commit fraud or carry out further cyber-attacks. External attacks typically use email-borne threats like phishing to steal credentials and enter the network as an authorized user. Once access is gained, they install malware or directly exfiltrate data. Often, the attack will be a slow process and difficult to detect. Hackers use data for primary and secondary cyber-attacks. Cybercriminals access sensitive, financial, and health data using a variety of tactics and techniques, including:

• Social engineering
• Phishing
• Malware
• The exploitation of misconfigured servers and databases.

Data loss prevention technologies are designed to stop data loss regardless of source.

Consequences of Data Loss

The loss of data, especially sensitive or proprietary data, leads to various adverse outcomes, including the following:

Financial Costs: As noted above, the cost of a data breach and lost sensitive information runs in the millions of dollars. However, even accidental data leaks via misdirected emails can cause financial damage in non-compliance fines and damages. For example, the University of East Anglia mistakenly sent 300 students an email containing sensitive information. The university paid out over £140,000 in compensation to affected students.

Loss of Reputation: Reputation damage can follow a data leak. If a company exposes sensitive customer data, those customers will be understandably angry. The result is customer loss and negative press, which leads to a negative brand impact.

Regulatory Non-Compliance: Regulations like GDPR require organizations to take preventative measures to uphold citizen privacy. Data loss equates to privacy violations and resulting non-compliance fines. The MOD in the UK was recently fined £350,000 for sending an email containing sensitive data. The email was sent to a distribution list of Afghan nationals eligible for evacuation. Instead of using the BCC field, the email continued the email addresses of all recipients and included thumbnail pictures associated with their email profiles. One person replied to all, giving their location.

Disruption to Business: The sheer act of remediation when a data leak occurs can lead to business downtime and distribution to productivity. Data loss remediation activities can take days or even moves to resolve an issue, including handling public notices and other compliance requirements.  Downtime costs are, on average, $1,410 per minute.

What is a Data Leak Prevention Solution?

Data loss prevention uses a mix of technology, including DLP tools and other measures, like security awareness training, to augment the technological measures. DLP tools stop sensitive data from going outside an organization's control. DLP tools also prevent unauthorized data access by ensuring that sensitive information is only available to the intended recipients. Advanced DLP solutions protect data during transit by enforcing encryption while transferring emails and any associated attachments.

Managed Service Providers and Data Loss Prevention

Managed service providers (MSPs) protect data for numerous enterprise clients and small businesses. By offering a DLP solution, an MSP delivers a much-needed method of preventing data loss and exposure.

DLP is a component of compliance regulations. DLP for email is necessary to protect sensitive information from exposure via email-based threats such as email misdirects, malware, phishing, and ransomware. Email data loss prevention solutions mitigate damages from common threats and stop users from being your primary vulnerability. Experts report that 85% of data breaches occur because of human error. Understandably, employees make mistakes, so a DLP solution acts as a failsafe to stop threats from data theft, corrupting data, or allowing an attacker access to your network environment to exfiltrate data. Data loss prevention software also stops accidental data loss, such as adding the wrong person to an email or sending information disallowed by security policies. DLP solutions are configured to identify keywords and stop any email that contains those words from leaving the corporate network. As such, DLP tools act as a DLP firewall.

Advanced cloud-based DLP solutions, like EncryptTitan, are designed to be delivered using a managed service provider (MSP) model. An MSP-delivered DLP solution is cloud-hosted and highly scalable. MSP-delivered DLP allows organizations to adjust their requirements as they grow and prevents a company from overpaying for DLP resources they do not use. An MSP is responsible for the DLP solution's setup, configuration, and general maintenance. In shouldering the burden of solution management, an MSP helps businesses focus on their core activities, keeping them safe, and knowing that their data is protected.

What is Data Leak Protection?

To prevent data loss, an organization needs effective strategies focusing on how data can be breached or leaked. Data leak protection is based on technology and policies designed to stop threats from unauthorized access to your data. DLP uses many strategies rather than one solution, but many enterprise solutions contain various methods to protect corporate data. The solution you use to protect data must follow best practices, and administrators should only implement a solution that follows compliance regulations that oversee your specific industry. Every device on the network must be a part of your data leak protection strategy. Just one vulnerable device could leave your data exposed.

Data leak protection uses a defense-in-depth approach to a complex and multifaceted area of data security. A comprehensive and layered approach to security is needed to stop attacks that focus on data. This includes deploying data loss prevention tools like EncryptTitan, as well as other measures:

• Anti-phishing capability to stop credential theft that can lead to data loss.
• Security awareness to train employees on safe internet and email use.
• Phishing simulations to teach employees how to spot social engineering and phishing attempts.

Companies Need a Data Leak Prevention Solution

The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) reports that eight of ten organizations say that at least one employee clicked on a malicious link in a phishing email. In an assessment, CISA also reported that 84% of employees took the phishing bait. Another report indicates that phishing scams cost large companies $15 million annually. A data leak prevention solution protects companies from being the next victim by helping them put the proper protections, policies, strategies, training, and infrastructure in place to stop threats targeting corporate data. Whether it’s ransomware, credential theft from phishing, or a simple misdirect of an email, data leak prevention, like EncryptTitan, helps to stop attacks before they become critical data breaches.

A 2022 report found that the average cost of a data breach in 2022 is $4.35 million, an increase of 12.7% over 2020 figures.

Ponemon and IBM

What Types of Data do DLP Solutions Protect?

DLP solutions can be configured to protect any data an organization wishes to secure. However, typically, the following types of data are covered by DLP:

• Personally identifiable information (PII).
• Protected health information (PHI).
• Sensitive information such as customer or financial data.
• Intellectual property (IP) and company proprietary information.
• Information communications that can reveal personal or sensitive information that could be used in social engineering attacks.
• Data outside the normal enterprise controls, for example, data generated and shared by remote workers.

DLP solutions also provide data visibility for organizations with complex cloud, mobile, and remote working environments. Data loss prevention platforms protect data no matter where it is located across distributed IT systems. In addition, some DLP vendors, like TitanHQ, offer security awareness training to add another layer of human-centric data protection.

What are DLP Vendors?

Vendors in the DLP space offer solutions for monitoring data, identifying data usage statistics, and providing visibility into how users and applications work with data across the corporate environment.  Solutions to prevent data loss and implement the correct data protection require years of coding, testing, and deployment, but a DLP vendor offers a solution to get you started quickly. Your solution should be easy to install and implement, monitor data, provide visibility into how data is used, alert administrators to a potential compromise, warn users of possible misuse, and block users or applications from unauthorized data access.

What is Email DLP?

Email is the most used method to communicate with colleagues and customers. Email traffic is massive, and most employees receive around 121 emails daily; it can be many more. Emails can easily be misdirected or inappropriate, and sensitive content can be sent outside the organization without approval.

To protect organizations from data loss via email-based threats, email DLP uses a combination of technologies, strategies, and policies to stop threats (e.g., social engineering and phishing) from obtaining sensitive information. Most data loss via email-based threats is from human error where, for example, an employee falls for a phishing threat and exposes their credentials, which are then used to compromise the corporate environment. Email DLP software analyzes incoming messages and determines if they have any suspicious content. For example, an embedded link could point to a phishing website; email DLP software quarantines the message so administrators can further review it for malicious content.

93% of organizations could trace a data breach to an insecure outbound email.

How Can Email Data Loss Prevention Stop Data Leaks?

Phishing and social engineering are two of the biggest threats to your organization, and email data loss prevention is a group of strategies that reduce your organization's risk of a compromise.  Strategic email DLP software uses artificial intelligence to analyze incoming messages and quarantine any that could be phishing, contain malware, or contain embedded links pointing to malicious websites. Administrators can review emails for false positives using the quarantine system and better protect corporate data from email-based threats. Good email data loss prevention also involves security awareness training to help employees recognize email-based threats.

How Do Email DLP Solutions Work?

Cyber-criminals use numerous ways to trick users into opening a malicious message and performing actions (e.g., clicking a malicious link or opening an attachment). An email DLP solution analyzes the content of a message and uses artificial intelligence to determine if the message could be malicious. Any potential malicious attachments are also blocked from reaching the intended recipient. Spoofed sender addresses are also detected, and their messages are blocked from reaching the intended recipient. Messages are quarantined, so they are not lost in case of a false positive and can be reviewed. Administrators review messages for malicious links, content, and attachments and identify if the sender could be a cyber-criminal using phishing strategies to gain unauthorized access to corporate data. Email DLP solutions help reduce the risks of a phishing attack from human error, such as email misdirection.

Stopping Scams Using Data Loss Prevention

According to a 2020 study, 93% of organizations could trace a data breach to an insecure outbound email. If an organization does not use a DLP solution, they are at a high risk of sensitive and proprietary data being accidentally or maliciously exposed. This exposure leads to further data breaches as leaked information is often used for continued cyber-attacks on an organization, including social engineering attempts. Once exposed, data leads to further attacks, including Business Email Compromise (BEC) scams that are used to steal large sums of money from an organization. In addition, exposed data puts a company at risk of non-compliance with data protection and privacy regulations. This can lead to hefty fines and reputation damage.

How do Data Leak Prevention Solutions Work?

DLP solutions offer several harmonized tools to deliver 360-degree coverage to prevent data loss. Typical functionality needed to achieve this all-round data loss prevention includes:

• Email Encryption: Encrypt both email content and attachments
• Automatic Encryption: Rules based on keywords or phrases automatically encrypt an email before it leaves an organization's control.
• Access Control of Emails: Ensure that only the authorized recipient of an email can decrypt the email.
• End-to-End Encryption: Support of the TLS protocol (Transport Layer Security) to ensure that any emails and attachments are encrypted during transfer.

What to Look for in a DLP Solution

Advanced DLP solutions, such as EncryptTitan, are designed to provide automated protection that ensures seamless protection without interrupting normal working. The types of features to look for in a data leakage protection solution include:

• Secure Data in Transit: The TLS protocol encrypts email during transmission between a web server and an email client, thus providing end-to-end encryption.
• Secure Data on Endpoints: Emails are encrypted until an authorized recipient decrypts the email and attachments.
• Recipient Authentication: Once an email is received, only authorized recipients can access it using the correct authentication credentials. EncryptTitan offers secure, seamless, automated access to encrypted email using a “web of trust” called TLS Verify. The web of trust uses a safe, shared environment. This provides a layer of additional security and ensures that data security standards meet the requirements of state and federal regulations for sending private information over email.
• Secure Data at Rest: Data retention policies and secure email archiving provide additional protection for stored emails and associated data.

Security Awareness Training and DLP Solutions

Employee security awareness training can augment DLP protection with an additional layer of security. Training platforms such as SafeTitan offer behavioral-based training that fits specific organizational roles and individuals. The training packages are designed to provide fun, interactive sessions that teach employees about the dangers of social engineering and phishing. Security awareness training should be part of a broader, holistic approach to protecting data that sits alongside data loss protection tools such as DLP solutions.

Additional DLP Solutions Features for The Managed Service Provider (MSP)

Data leak prevention solutions are ideal for a managed service provider (MSP) delivery. A DLP solution and associated measures like security awareness training create a DLP firewall around our client's organization. An MSP should look for the following additional features when considering a DLP solution:

• Easy to Deploy, Manage, and Sell: DLP solutions must be cloud-based for ease of installation by an MSP.
• Easy Integration: The DLP solution should be able to be integrated into an MSP’s existing Service Stack using APIs and RMM integrations.
• Competitive Pricing: DLP solutions delivered by an MSP should benefit from competitive pricing strategies that fit an SMB market.
• Recurring Revenue: The DLP solution should offer an MSP a recurring revenue model based on a high-margin, subscription-based SaaS solution.
• White Labeling: the DLP solution should reflect the brand of the MSP if required.
• Reduced Maintenance: minimal IT service intervention is a must for an MSP.
• Support: Vendor/MSP collaborative support should be available, with scalable pre-sales and technical support as well as sales and technical training.
• Multi-Tenancy: A multi-tenant dashboard supporting an MSP-client hierarchy enables the MSP to separate clients and choose whether to manage client settings in bulk or individually.

DLP and Data Protection Regulations

DLP solutions provide data leak prevention and protection. Data leak protection meets the requirements of numerous data protection and data privacy regulations worldwide, including GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA, etc.

MSPs can deliver next-generation data leak prevention to their clients by joining 3,000 other MSPs in the TitanHQ Partner Program. To find out more, contact TitanHQ’s MSP team.