Breaking Down the Basics of Cloud DLP
Cloud DLP (data loss prevention) is more important than ever in our increasingly cloud-based world. As critical data gets continually exposed to risk factors such as remote work, cyberattacks, and system security malfunctions, it’s crucial to establish protection steps that guard your sensitive information and your brand.
Cloud ecosystems help increase productivity, enabling employees to work anytime and anywhere. However, this freedom isn’t without its challenges. According to IBM’s Cost of a Data Breach report, it takes organizations [58 days longer](https://www.ibm.com/account/reg/us-en/signup?formid=urx-50915) to identify and contain breaches when remote workers are involved, with [phishing](https://www.armorblox.com/blog/the-fault-in-our-emails-why-everyone-still-falls-for-phishing-attacks/) being the most common attack vector.
While cloud DLP can seem complicated, the basics are pretty straightforward. This article will break down cloud DLP for you, discuss its benefits, and best practices to help you get started.
## **What Is Cloud DLP?**
Cloud DLP provides security controls for organizations that implement cloud storage strategies, including multi-cloud, hybrid, public, and private cloud ecosystems. It protects sensitive data in motion, at rest, and at endpoints to prevent it from being accessed, exposed, or stored by unauthorized parties.
Cloud DLP integrates with cloud storage providers to scan and encrypt sensitive data before it’s transferred to cloud storage, ensuring it’s protected from theft and data leakage risks.
But doesn’t my cloud provider protect me from these risks? Not necessarily. When cloud providers fail to take appropriate security measures like enforcing MFA, cloud encryption, and strict controls, your organization’s data can easily be compromised. Being proactive in protecting your sensitive data with a cloud DLP solution is the least you can do to meet compliance and security standards.
## **Cloud DLP Benefits**
There are many benefits to using a cloud DLP solution:
* More cost-effective than traditional on-premise DLP solutions
* Easier to deploy and manage
* Offers better protection for sensitive data
* Enables you to scan and audit data already stored in the cloud at any time
* Automatically applies prompt, block, and encrypt controls to data to comply with privacy and data protection regulations and established company policies
* Automatically generates alerts, notifying stakeholders when data is at risk
* Safely integrates with cloud storage providers, enabling you to continuously scan servers, audit, identify, and encrypt data before sharing files
## **Cloud DLP Best Practices**
If you’re serious about email security, adopting cloud DLP best practices is a great place to start. Here are eight DLP best practices that keep your data safe from internal and external threats:
1. **Identify, classify, and control sensitive data:** Take inventory of your company’s sensitive data as the first and most important step of setting a DLP plan in motion. Label data as ***sensitive, private, confidential,*** and ***important*** to help system administrators locate data batches and prioritize accordingly.
2. **Use exact data matching:** Create information categories unique to your industry or company, like account numbers, social security numbers, or other forms of identification.
3. **Use data encryption:** Encrypt data on laptops and computers to help mitigate losses if devices are damaged or stolen.
4. **Use [email DLP software](https://www.armorblox.com/learn/email-dlp/):** Implement an email DLP software that monitors, detects, and flags suspicious activity to prevent sharing sensitive data with unauthorized recipients over email.
5. **Enforce security policies and procedures:** Make sure security policies and procedures for handling DLP scenarios are enforced. This is critical for keeping incidents at bay.
6. **Use multi-factor authentication (MFA):** Replicate two-factor authentication (2FA) or MFA for any email that makes unusual requests. Having an official MFA protocol is preferable.
7. **Train employees on security protocols:** Stay current with evolving threats and train your employees to identify DLP risks. This is imperative with cyberattacks and the likelihood of human errors on the rise.
8. **Define user groups:** Restrict access based on the [Principle of Least Privilege](https://digitalguardian.com/blog/what-principle-least-privilege-polp-best-practice-information-security-and-compliance) to control file access and sharing rights.
**For more in-depth information, read [Email DLP Best Practices to Protect Your Data](https://www.armorblox.com/blog/email-dlp-best-practices/)**
## **Armorblox’s Advanced Data Loss Prevention Keeps Your Organization Safe**
* Reduce false positives by applying natural language understanding (NLU) to improve security operation efficiency.
* Prevent sensitive data exposure by combining user-behavior analytics, content analysis, and insights from business workflows.
* Avoid static rule-based policy setups. Save time and automate security response with policies and detections powered by AI (artificial intelligence) and ML (machine learning).
Learn more about how [Armorblox is reinventing DLP](https://www.armorblox.com/solutions/data-loss-prevention/) with its NLU platform, and [contact us](https://www.armorblox.com/demo/) for a customized demo of our solution.
