How Does Data Loss Prevention Work and Why Is It Important?

As of today, the market for data loss prevention systems is one of the fastest developing markets. Among all business sectors of data security tools, data loss prevention is thriving. But how does data loss prevention work?

What Is a Data Loss Prevention?

What is the data loss prevention market? What do these solutions do? How does data loss prevention work?

When referring to data loss prevention systems, we generally mean software products that shield organizations. They protect against leaks of sensitive data.

Such systems assemble a digital security perimeter around organizations. They investigate all outgoing and in some cases, approaching data. The control should incorporate web traffic, as well as various other data streams:

  • Documents on mobile devices.
  • Documents on external devices outside the ensured security circuit.

Data loss prevention systems avoid leaks of confidential data. They have inherent components for determining the privacy level of the document. As a rule, there are two regular techniques of how does data loss prevention work:

  • How does data loss prevention work on analyzing the content of a report?
  • How does data loss prevention work on analyzing the unique document markers?

At present, the first technique of how does data loss prevention work is more common. It is resistant to changes and permits extending the number of documents that the system can work with.

The Other Tasks of Data Loss Prevention

In addition to the primary task of avoiding data leaks, data loss prevention systems can also solve other tasks. It is identified with the control of employee activities. Most often, data loss prevention systems solve the following non-primary tasks:

  • How Does Data Loss Prevention Work?
    It controls worker communication for identifying struggles that can damage organizations.
  • How Does Data Loss Prevention Work?
    It controls how employees use resources and working time.
  • How Does Data Loss Prevention Work?
    It identifies employees who send out a resume to secure a new job.
  • How Does Data Loss Prevention Work?
    It controls employee activities from a legal perspective.

Organizations consider a few of these tasks to be more of a need than security. There exist various programs developed for this reason. In some cases, they can shield organizations from leaks as well. Unlike the full-fledged data loss prevention systems, these programs don't highlight advanced tools. This must be done by an information systems expert. It is appropriate only for small organizations.

Trends and Prospects of Data Loss Prevention

Specialists state that the fundamental pattern is the progress to "patched" systems. It is comprised of parts from various manufacturers. It solves separate tasks to single integrated software suites.

The reason is obvious. Complex integrated systems ease data security experts. They don't need to take care of the compatibility issues of system components. Such systems also empower information systems experts. They can change the settings on a large number of customer workstations and streamline the exchange of information from one component of a single integrated system to another.

Developers are also moving to integrated systems because of the details of data security tasks. You cannot leave one leakage channel uncontrolled.

Another significant trend in information security is the change to a modular structure. It means that a client can choose the required components. The business specificity will also assume a noteworthy role in how does data loss prevention work. We can expect the arrival of special versions developed for the specific institutions. These special versions meet the requests of organizations.

Classification of Data Loss Prevention Systems?

All data loss prevention systems can be divided into a few main classes. Data loss prevention has the ability to block confidential data. There are systems with passive and dynamic control of user actions.

Dynamic systems can block transferred data. But passive data loss prevention systems don't have this component. The previous systems handle irregular information leaks much better, but they can suspend business processes. The latter is fine for the business tasks, though they are only suitable for preventing leaks.

Another classification of data loss prevention system depends on their network design. Gateway data loss prevention systems work on intermediate servers. Host systems use agents that work on the workers’ PCs. Today, the most recognized options on knowing how does data loss prevention work are by using a shared gateway and host components.