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7 Quick Takeaways on How Fasoo Enables Zero Trust Data Security

Quick takeaways on how Fasoo enables zero trust data securityEnterprise Digital Rights Management (EDRM) encrypts files, enforces user access, and controls data in use – no implicit assumptions. It sets a least privilege baseline for sensitive data on which you can dynamically grant increasing levels of explicit access. It’s what Zero Trust is all about.

Inside the perimeter, implicit trust was turned on its head by digital transformation and the hybrid workplace. Zero Trust’s explicit, least privilege, continuous monitoring, and adaptive risk assessment are the new standards for data security in today’s world.

You likely have some set of DLP or Insider Risk Management tools, but these fall well short of the new standards. So how do you move to Zero Trust Data Security?

Learn more about how to bring DLP up to Zero Trust standards.

Consider integrating EDRM. It fortifies your existing tools with strong protection methods and explicit controls. And with Fasoo’s approach to EDRM, gain the high-resolution data visibility Zero Trust continuous monitoring and adaptive access standards demand.

7 Quick Takeaways

Here are 7 quick takeaways on how EDRM and Fasoo can set you on the path to Zero Trust Data Security.

1. File-Centric, Location Agnostic

Go to the source itself. The file. Quit chasing and trying to enforce data security and control at every new place the file may travel, reside, or a user accesses it. Traffic cops at every ingress and egress point are old school, perimeter thinking. Bind all security and privacy controls to the file itself so you can persistently enforce enterprise safeguards in the cloud, WFH, on BYOD, and at supply chain partners.

2. File Encryption

It seems obvious for an explicit-based model. But today’s DLP tactics are mostly a monitor-alert approach while you expose the data to risk. Instead, automatically encrypt sensitive files when users create or modify them. Use centralized policies and hold the keys so users don’t control your data. Use this no-nonsense, least privilege baseline to build explicit access to sensitive data.

3. User Access

You don’t want an insider wandering through an entire repository or even folders – it’s too implicit. Most insider breaches are mistakes in handling sensitive data, like storing it in the wrong location. It’s better to enforce explicit access decisions, for each file, every time a user opens it. That’s Zero Trust Data Security.

4. Control Data in Use

But what happens after an insider gains access to a file? It’s a free pass to copy, cut, paste share, and store sensitive corporate data as they wish. That’s not Zero Trust. If I simply need to read the document, why let me extract or share the data? A supply chain partner needs to edit a file. But why let them copy, print, or store the document locally? Use explicit granular document rights to enforce Zero Trust least privileges and control your data in use.

5. Visibility

Visibility is knowing how your data is used, how it moves about, and what users do with it. Zero Trust relies on data visibility for continuous monitoring. Not easy in today’s hybrid workplace with existing tools. At best, its reliance and reconciliation of disparate security, network, application, repository, and endpoint logs. Better to use file-centric controls to make the file self-reporting, recording all lifetime interactions to a Central File Log no matter where it travels or who accesses it.

6. Continuous Monitoring

Just because you had access before doesn’t matter. That would be implicit trust. Zero Trust wants an explicit, context-aware decision each time. To do so, you need to monitor user identity, prior file interactions, devices, times, and places for each of the thousand if not millions of documents in your inventory. In real-time. Impossible? The Central File Log makes it easy, staging up-to-date, file-specific log data for Zero Trust monitoring.

7. Adaptive Access

Access is no longer an “all or none” decision. More “if so, how much.” It must adapt based on current circumstances, informed by the findings of continuous monitoring, and enabled by deep file visibility. Once you assess the risk, employ a wide range of granular document controls that can enforce the appropriate Zero Trust privileges.

Start on Zero Trust Data Security Now

Adopting a least privilege, explicit access to your sensitive data is key to protect your intellectual property and comply with privacy regulations. Integrating EDRM fortifies your existing tools with strong protection methods and explicit controls that are the cornerstones of Zero Trust Data Security.

As users and data continue to move around, protecting the data itself with these strong controls is your best bet to protect your business and your customers.

 

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Learn more about Enterprise Digital Rights Management
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Why DLP Needs EDRM

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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Three Essential Capabilities to Bring DLP up to Zero Trust Standards

Organizations are working to bring existing security capabilities up to date with Zero Trust standards.  An organization’s path to Zero Trust Data Security often starts with an existing DLP solution set.

Zero Trust is all about explicit risk assessments, monitoring, and control.  One that extends beyond just managing access to data but to control how you use the data.  An approach that uses continuous monitoring to make dynamic, explicit decisions each time a user accesses sensitive files.

Traditional DLP falls short of these standards.

Here are three essential capabilities to bring your existing data security up to Zero Trust standards.

1. Centrally Apply File Encryption

DLP solutions monitor data – Allow/Block – but the sensitive data itself is left unprotected.

Zero Trust principles dictate stronger measures like file encryption. This eliminates implicit access to files and sets a clear reference point to make Zero Trust explicit access decisions.

Zero Trust Data Security also cares about “who” encrypts the file. Many solutions rely on the user to encrypt sensitive files and in some cases, a user sets a password. This can lead to errors in protecting data and requires the encryptor – your employees – to grant access to your own critical data.

A centralized policy platform is foundational to Zero Trust Data Security. With centrally enforced policies, a file with sensitive data can be automatically encrypted when created or modified, all transparent to the user. It lifts the burden from the user, eliminates errors, and keeps workflows moving.

This also gives you control over the encryption keys – not the user, cloud provider, or any other third party. This is increasingly important in hybrid and multi-cloud workplaces as privacy regulations become more proscriptive regarding data residency and access rights.

Consistently and proactively centrally applied file encryption is a big step toward achieving Zero Trust Data Security.

 

2. Control Data-In-Use

Insider threats expose a major gap in DLP solutions. It’s the poster child example for implicit trust that Zero Trust looks to eliminate.

With DLP, once a verified user gains access to the file, it’s a free pass to use corporate sensitive data. Users can copy, cut, and paste sensitive data into new file formats; share the data across multiple collaboration applications; and store and print sensitive files on personal (BYOD) devices.

DLP binary actions, full or no access, are no longer enough. Zero Trust principles are based on a continuous, explicit risk assessment that takes a least-privilege approach to access and use. It considers the sensitivity of the data and the context in which it’s being used.

Zero Trust Data Security requires the availability of a broader range of file permissions to control data-in-use. For example, a user that only needs to read a document should be restricted from extracting or sharing the data. Allowing a user to edit a file, but restricting copy or print, are other examples of granular document controls. Disabling screen sharing when displaying sensitive data, and print watermarking are other necessary capabilities in a Zero Trust world.

Upgrading DLP with granular document rights controls provides the data-in-use options that enable Zero Trust Data Security.

 

3. Monitoring Depends on Visibility

The ability to continuously monitor data activities so you can make explicit decisions each time someone tries to access sensitive files is central to a Zero Trust approach. How you use data, how it moves about, and what users do with it is an essential input to an explicit model.

However, traditional DLP and network tools create a patchwork approach to data visibility with some organizations employing over 40 IT and security tools to trace data. Visibility is also thwarted in today’s hybrid workplace by cloud and work-from-home environments where data can be stored in unauthorized locations and devices.

To move toward Zero Trust Data Security, you should upgrade your DLP solutions with a file-centric approach, making the file itself the source of reporting. A unique ID embedded in each file logs every access (network/application/individual), what was done with the file, and other context-aware information like device and geographical location.

Implement a file-centric approach to achieve the visibility necessary to enable Zero Trust Data Security.

 

Update DLP to Zero Trust Data Security

Implementing a Zero Trust approach to an existing security model is gradual.  The Fasoo Data Security Platform helps you achieve success without ripping out your current DLP infrastructure.  This protects your existing investment but gives you true Zero Trust Data Security to meet your governance and regulatory requirements.

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Why do you need a Zero Trust Data Security Platform?

Fasoo zero trust data security platform protects your sensitive unstructured dataZero Trust is a major trend in 2022 and one that affects public and private sector organizations alike.  Last year when the Biden administration in the US issued its Executive Order on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity, zero trust was a major component of this initiative.

Organizations implement traditional perimeter-based security strategies on the assumption that the perimeter is secure inside.  Zero trust assumes that no person or device inside or outside of an organization is trusted.  It is a system that requires thorough verification of all users, data, and devices, and allows only minimal privileges.

The concept of zero trust is not new.  It was suggested in 2010 by analyst John Kindervag of Forrester Research to denote stricter cybersecurity programs and access control within corporations.

Now 12 years later, security experts agree that a zero-trust-based security strategy is needed, not perimeter-based security.  The reason is simple.  The environment is changing.
 

Why zero-trust now?

The pandemic-driven transition to a hybrid workplace has become the norm.  As telecommuting and remote work becomes common, concerns about perimeter-based security are growing more than ever before.  This is because the boundaries of the work environment have become blurred, driven in part by the increased adoption of mobile and cloud services.  This will inevitably lead to a security vacuum.

The environment surrounding data security faces a variety of changes, including cyber warfare caused by the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, cyberattacks on companies by hacker groups like Lapsus$, and numerous incidents of corporate data breaches by trusted insiders.

In this environment, it is natural for zero-trust-based solutions to be in the spotlight.  It’s the data itself that we need to protect, so we need a data-driven security system that can safely protect our data in a rapidly changing environment.

 

Zero Trust Data Security

Protecting sensitive data first requires identifying it, classifying or labeling it, and then determining who should have access to it.  This requires constant authentication and verification of user identity.  Fasoo’s zero-trust approach to safeguarding sensitive unstructured data goes beyond just access controls.  It layers three powerful security methods to achieve a strong, proactive first-line defense again external and insider threats.

  • Encryption
  • Adaptive Access Control
  • Control Data in Use

 

Cloud misconfigurations, user errors, and work from home environments all expose sensitive files to breaches that access control alone can’t prevent.  A true zero-trust approach secures the file at all times – at rest, in transit, and while in use – and continuously monitors user, device, and other contexts to adaptively evaluate access permissions.
 

Encrypt Files

The best way to protect a sensitive file is to encrypt it.  It ensures files are protected while at rest and in transit no matter the location or network.  This sets the foundation for a zero-trust approach on which other safeguards build.

  • Automatically discover, classify and encrypt sensitive files when created or modified, all transparent to the user. User errors are eliminated and workflows are uninterrupted.
  • Encryption keys are centrally held and controlled by the company – not by the user, cloud provider, or any other third party. This is increasingly important in hybrid and multi-cloud workplaces as privacy regulations become more proscriptive regarding data residency and access rights.

 
Encrypted files ensure any exfiltration of sensitive information is safe from misuse.  Many privacy regulations exempt encrypted file exfiltration from breach reporting or significantly reduce any fines.  It all negates one of the worst risks related to today’s ransomware threats – exploitation of exfiltrated data.
 

Apply Access Control

User verification is enforced each time the file is accessed and incorporates contextual information about the user and device to dynamically adapt to grant or deny access.

  • User access to a sensitive document is automatically applied as part of the initial discovery process with presets that are centrally configured and provide flexible and practical settings. Individual users, departments, roles in the organization, and “all internal share” are examples of preset alternatives.
  • Fasoo enables a range of other elements, including device identity, time of day, and geolocation to be assessed as part of its adaptive zero-trust access approach. This dynamic linking of multiple verification points ensures the highest degree of trust can be enforced for sensitive data.

 

While centralized control of document access is the default, the platform provides flexibility so that document owners can unilaterally change access, if business needs dictate.  This allows those closest to the data to make security decisions without needing to involve security or IT.  Continuous monitoring of user behavior reports such exceptions for line manager and compliance team inspection.  Such analytics are also applied to continuous monitoring of device and location information.
 

Control over Data

Insider threats expose a major gap in many declared zero-trust solutions.  Once a verified insider gains access to the file, it’s a free pass to use corporate sensitive data.  Joiners and leavers in a transient workforce, work from home environments, and supply chain collaboration opens the door for inadvertent or malicious insider data breaches.

  • True zero-trust requires control over usage as well as access. Forward, cut and paste, copy, print, and screen capture are examples of the many ways insiders can maliciously or unintentionally expose sensitive information to unauthorized parties.
  • Usage controls must consider the sensitivity of the data, and the context in which it’s being used and enable a wide range of permissions, from restricting actions to watermarking files, to address insider threats.

 

Fasoo enables a comprehensive set of file permissions to control what authorized users can and can’t do with a document in use.  Central pre-set policies can be implemented at the user, department, or organization-wide level as well as by role (all Directors) or project (M&A, Drug Approval).

Proactive control over data usage is essential to a true zero-trust approach.

Talk with us about how Fasoo Data Security will strengthen your zero-trust initiatives.

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