This is why your organization needs Data Loss Prevention

Data loss prevention identifies, monitors, and secures the sensitive data in use, in motion on a network, and the data at rest in your data storage area.

Data loss prevention is one of the most overused but misunderstood words in the IT industry, adding to the confusion and hype. To understand what is data loss prevention and why organizations need data loss prevention, you must have a clear understanding of a data breach. Data volume is increasing exponentially across sectors, thereby increasing opportunities for thefts and disclosure of sensitive and proprietary information. The global outbreak of WannaCry ransomware is putting data into the hands of hackers. Data privacy and security is an integral part of any organization and it is crucial that industries must adopt data loss prevention strategies to protect their confidential data. Data Loss Prevention offers numerous benefits, such as checking which databases hold sensitive information, informing organizations when someone is sending source code via email, allowing sectors to enforce a policy by blocking network transmissions, and ensuring that data is not left on file systems.

Causes of data loss

If data is lost in any sector, it can be recovered using data recovery methods. However, data recovery methods are complicated to apply and it take a lot of time and money. The list below brings forth the causes of data loss:

• Hardware malfunction - According to the survey, more than two-fifths of users lose their data because of hardware malfunctions. Common examples of hardware malfunctions are electric power cut, short-circuits, or failing of computer hardware such as motherboard, wires, and so on.
• Human errors – This is one of the most common causes for data loss. No human is perfect and with utmost care too humans tend to make errors.
• Software corruption - Sometimes the computer suddenly shuts down when we are in the middle of some important work and unfortunately we lose all essential data. Such scenarios are called software corruption.
• Natural disasters – As per Carbonite, “70% of business people have/will experience data loss due to accidental deletion, disk or system failure, viruses or fire.” As natural calamities are an uncontrollable cause, there is nothing we could do to stop it from happening.

Importance of data loss prevention

Data and security breaches are causing havoc in organizations. Data breaches created an acute need for data loss prevention. Organizations assimilate a large volume of data to improve their products and enhance their business. The more in-depth the data is, the more it must be secured. Data Loss Prevention offers a 360-degree view of the location, flow, and usage of data across an enterprise, which helps organizations to prevent any kind of data loss.

As listed above, data loss does not only occur due to external malicious attacks; it can also happen due to human errors. Data Loss Prevention helps organizations in such cases by identifying the sensitive information from files, databases, or desktops, and preventing it from leaving via any network. Additionally, it can apply policies to safeguard data. Furthermore, Data Loss Prevention helps avoid internal threats happening. For instance, an employee is willing to work over the weekend and she mails confidential details onto her mail account with a good intention, there is a significant risk of security threats. Data Loss Prevention offers a 360-degree monitoring of emails, instant messages, accessed documents, and helps detect problems before they damage your organization. Moreover, Data Loss Prevention also helps prevent negative publicity and loss of customers due to data breaches, thereby assisting marketers to make tremendous progress in their business.

Data loss cannot be controlled but it can be prevented by applying data loss prevention technology. Proper understanding and training of the data loss prevention approach is vital for organizations to secure their business data.