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DLP needs EDRM to control data-in-use and protect documents everywhere

Data loss prevention (DLP) solutions focus on the movement of sensitive data. They analyze document content and user behavior patterns and can restrict the movement of information based on preset criteria. With the move to remote work, traditional DLP solutions can’t safeguard sensitive data since it’s difficult to monitor all the locations users can send and store documents.

While DLP is good at finding sensitive data in files, it can’t control access to the data inside. Once a user has access, they can copy and paste the data anywhere. If someone shares a sensitive document with a business partner or customer, DLP has no visibility to that document and can’t control access to it.

Enterprise Digital Rights Management (EDRM) focuses on protecting sensitive data in documents. It automatically encrypts files and controls file access privileges dynamically at rest, in use, and in motion. It provides visibility and control regardless of where the document travels.

Four ways EDRM enhances DLP

 

1. Protects Sensitive Data Wherever It Travels

DLP is a perimeter-based solution that stops the movement of data. By blocking ingress and egress points, you can stop users from copying sensitive documents to a USB drive, a collaboration solution, or the cloud. This presents challenges as security teams try to block all the locations a document can go. With many people working from home and using personal devices (BYOD), this is becoming almost unmanageable.

EDRM takes a file-centric approach to security. It applies encryption, access control, and document usage rights that travel with the file everywhere. Controls are always enforced regardless of location or device. You know your sensitive data is safe even if users access files on new devices or share data with customers, partners, and other third parties.

 

2. Enforces Consistent Controls Across Cloud Environments

You probably have numerous perimeter security solutions across your internal networks, cloud services, and endpoints. This creates inconsistent policies that leave security and privacy gaps. Gartner projects that “through 2025, more than 99% of cloud breaches will have a root cause of preventable misconfigurations or mistakes by end-users.”

With EDRM you set safeguards centrally and retain ultimate control over who can access the data and how. Cloud administrators and end-users can’t remove the protections which remain with the file no matter where the data resides or who accesses it. This simplifies your security controls and eliminates a major reason for a data breach in today’s multi-cloud environment.

Learn more about how to implement consistent data protection controls in the cloud.

 

3. Controls Data-In-Use to Minimize Risk from Insider Threats

Once a verified user gains access to a file, that sensitive corporate data can go anywhere. Users can copy, cut, and paste sensitive data into new file formats, share it in collaboration applications, and store and print sensitive files on personal devices. Someone may not be malicious but accidentally may share sensitive data. How many times have you accidentally emailed a file to the wrong person?

EDRM can apply a broad range of file permissions to control data-in-use. If a user only needs to read a document, you can prevent them from sharing or printing it. If that user needs to edit the file, you can change permissions and allow them to edit, but restrict copying the data to an email or other insecure location. Controlling what a user can do when a file is open stops data breaches by insiders in today’s world of leavers and joiners.

Learn more about how to minimize insider threats.

 

4. File Visibility Ensures Security

Visibility is lost in today’s hybrid workplace because users can store and access data on just about any device and in any location, many not in your control. Traditional DLP and network tools create a patchwork approach to data visibility with some organizations employing over 40 IT and security tools to trace sensitive data.

Advanced EDRM solutions use a file-centric approach to embed a unique ID in each file. It makes the file self-reporting, logging all access and actions taken on the file. This also applies to copies and derivatives, like PDFs. The file is “never lost” and is constantly monitored providing essential feedback for adaptive control and access decisions.

 

EDRM Makes DLP Stronger

By adding EDRM, you can protect your sensitive data regardless of its location and control that all important data in use. This is critical to stop both malicious and accidental insider threats. It lets you sleep at night knowing that your sensitive data is protected, controlled, and monitored at all times.

 

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Learn more about EDRM.
Learn more about how to improve traditional DLP systems.

Protect data in the cloud with Fasoo encryption, access control and in-use protectionThe enterprise is moving to the cloud to ease collaboration for partners and employees. The cloud enables work-from-home and hybrid working models and enhances productivity.

But the cloud is vulnerable to human error and misguided settings, putting your data at risk of unauthorized access. According to Gartner, preventable misconfigurations and end-user mistakes cause more than 99% of cloud breaches. Cloud providers use a flavor of security. But data needs its own protection.

What’s the risk of storing data in the cloud?

End-users share Dropbox links and credentials from personal smartphones via Wi-Fi hotspots. They email documents to friends and unauthorized third parties. You’d no more send your data out into the world without policies, access controls, and encryption than send a child out into the cold without a coat. But if you leave security to the cloud, who knows where your data ends up.

Amazon S3 buckets include unlimited storage. But weak settings leave default credentials intact, granting limitless access to criminal hackers who automatically search and exploit bucket links. When criminal hackers kidnap your files, cloud cyber defenses seldom follow behind. You need centralized control with enterprise security that wraps your data and sticks with it.

Enterprises work with many cloud providers, passing data from one environment to the next, one job to the next. You may have some visibility when you pass data directly to the cloud. But what happens when that cloud routes your data to other cloud environments for processing? It’s one thing to entrust your child to someone you know; it’s another to let them hand her off to someone they know.

Cloud providers may offer security policies, identity and access controls, and encryption for data in transit and at rest. But those stop short where the cloud ends, leaving your intellectual property (IP) open to theft by criminal hackers and exploitation by unscrupulous competitors.

How do I protect my sensitive data in the cloud?

Enterprise Digital Rights Management (EDRM) eases moving to the cloud, binding location-agnostic security controls to unstructured data. EDRM embeds encryption, persistent IDs, and access control policies with sensitive documents. Your custom controls travel with your files into unmanaged, unsecured environments.

EDRM maintains data governance policies and controls on your confidential documents whether you move them to Salesforce, Box, Microsoft Azure, or AWS. You can track documents in and beyond the cloud, maintain access controls, and change granular permissions and privileges at any point using centralized policy management.

You don’t have to care what cloud has your data; EDRM keeps it safe when cloud security fails. If the cloud provider has a breach, so what? EDRM maintains the security policies, controls, and enforcements you’ve set in motion, no matter who has your data.

You can ease moving to the cloud by mitigating your risk. The Discovery Classification Tool (DCT) identifies old, redundant, and obsolete data. You can delete obsolete files and duplicates and archive data you must keep, reducing your attack surface, data management requirements, and cloud costs. Then use EDRM to apply policies and encryption to the data you use, and move it to the cloud.

Chat with the Fasoo team and discover how your peers deploy Enterprise DRM in the cloud.

 

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