Data Loss Prevention Tools Prove Invaluable to Online Organizations
Posted by Lauren Ellis on September 8th, 2014
For over a decade the growth in cyber-attacks have escalated to a point where data theft and breach have become unavoidable. These attacks have increased not only in numbers, but also in sophistication.
In 2013 alone, data breach incidents subjected more than 800 million private records to exposure, and in recent months an alarming number of organizations have reported massive data breaches including major companies like telecommunications player AT& T, online retailers such as eBay and Target, and the social networking sites Twitter, Facebook, Gmail, LinkedIn, and YouTube. What is the cause for these attacks? To date, the leading cause for the majority of these attacks are hackers. This is followed by malware and physical attacks such as card skimming and point-of-sale (POS) invasions.
The Impact on Businesses
A data breach occurrence can have devastating costs on all businesses. Breaches such as this can result in lost revenue that can climb upwards past millions of dollars, including potential fines that can be assessed. In addition, the lasting impact on a company’s reputation and brand image can be catastrophic. Customer loyalty and spending habits are shown to be significantly and measurably impacted by data breaches. This matter has become of critical concern for business managers and has ultimately led to the demand for services and solutions that offer enterprise-wide data loss protection and prevention.
Preventing Intrusion
It’s quite possible that data loss prevention tools are the least understood tools in the security arsenal. With at least a half-dozen different names and even more approaches to technology, it can be difficult to understand the ultimate and immeasurable value of these tools and which products best suit which environments. Finding data loss prevention tools that work effectively means reaching a balance between success rate at detecting and/or blocking sensitive data from leaving the network, speed, and sufficient coverage across a wide range of rule-sets and protocols. However, with ABI Research calculating that the market for Data Loss Prevention (DLP) solutions will reach $1.7 billion by the end of 2014, it’s obvious that the trend is out of necessity.
Protection strategies that are highly effective require solutions that protect data across applications, databases, endpoint devices, and networks. Data loss prevention tools do just that. DLP solutions offer comprehensive coverage across physical, application, and network channels as well as content-based recognition and device control framework at the endpoints.
What the Research Says
ABI Research recently conducted a study on the trend in cyber-attacks. According to their senior analyst in cybersecurity, Monolina Sen, “If implemented carefully, DLP solutions can mitigate data loss risks, comply with government regulations, and protect customer privacy.” Data Loss Prevention is a growing market, with a growing number of options, but by understanding the capabilities of data loss prevention tools and implementing a plan, you can prevent accidental disclosures of data and end bad business processes around the use of sensitive data. DLP Solutions is only clear way to stop knowledgeable attackers. DLP Solutions prove invaluable to organizations that plan properly and understand how to take full advantage of them.
Author :
Lauren Ellis is a research analyst covering the technology industry’s top trends & topics, focusing on Cloud Security, Cloud Computing, Data Loss Prevention etc.,
