Are your employees careless with sensitive data? Are you sure that company documents are shared securely? Did you have sensitive data leakage? Do you know how many outbound emails contain sensitive data? If you answered yes to any of these questions, it’s possible that you don’t have adequate data loss protection policies in place.

These are critical questions every organization should ask to ensure the security of their sensitive information. Employee carelessness, unsecured document sharing, and data leakage can lead to significant risks, including financial loss and reputational damage. Understanding the extent of these issues, developing and implementing data loss protection policies are the first steps towards mitigating them.

Data Loss Protection Policies

Data Loss Protection policies provide a solid solution to automatically protect your company’s sensitive data, organization-wide, or just for certain departments or groups. It scans content for sensitive data and if conditions are met, it can block people from sharing and restrict access to shared content or encrypt email messages in transit and ensure only the intended receiver can read the message.

DLP policies offer a robust solution for protecting sensitive data across the organization. These policies can be applied organization-wide or tailored to specific departments or groups. DLP scans content for sensitive data and, if certain conditions are met, can block sharing, restrict access, or encrypt email messages to ensure that only the intended recipient can read them.

Microsoft 365 Data Loss Protection (DLP) Feature

Microsoft 365 offers a robust Data Loss Protection (DLP) feature designed to help organizations safeguard their sensitive data. DLP is an essential tool for preventing data breaches and ensuring that sensitive information is handled securely. DLP is part of the Security and Compliance center in Office 365 and it is tightly integrated with Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, and OneDrive for Business. It can also help protect information in desktop versions of Excel, Word, and PowerPoint files.

DLP is seamlessly integrated into the Security and Compliance center of Office 365, providing comprehensive protection across various platforms. It works with Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, and OneDrive for Business, as well as desktop versions of Excel, Word, and PowerPoint. This integration ensures that sensitive data is protected no matter where it resides or how it is accessed.

DLP in Office 365 consists of out-of-the-box or custom-made policies in which you can define where, when, and how to protect sensitive content.

Office 365’s DLP feature allows you to create policies that define the parameters for protecting sensitive content. These policies can be either out-of-the-box or custom-made to suit your organization’s specific needs. DLP automatically analyzes content and searches for predefined sensitive information, ensuring that it is protected according to your policies.

For example, the U.S. Patriot Act defines the following data as sensitive:

  • Credit Card Number
  • U.S. Bank Account Numbers
  • U.S. Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN)
  • U.S. Social Security Number (SSN)

Additionally, you probably want to protect Personally Identifiable Information (PII) Data either to protect the identity of your employees, vendors, business partners, or clients. PII assumes the following data:

  • U.S. Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN)
  • U.S. / U.K. Passport Number
  • U.S. Driver’s License Number

Sensitive data, as defined by regulations like the U.S. Patriot Act, includes credit card numbers, bank account numbers, ITINs, and SSNs. Additionally, Personally Identifiable Information (PII) such as passport numbers and driver’s license numbers should be protected to safeguard the identities of employees, vendors, business partners, and clients.

All of this data is commonly shared by HR and Finance departments in many companies, and it can often happen that employees want to send something to a colleague via email but forget that their business partner or bank account manager is also cc-d in the email they are replying to. I have also witnessed many cases where sensitive employee PII data is sent in bulk to an external company that does accounting or similar. There is also an option to implement U.S. Health Insurance Act (HIPPA) protection that will help in the detection of medical terms.

DLP Testing Modes and User Education

A nice option to just provide info on how often a certain type of data is actually shared with external users is to use policy in testing mode. Policy would then just send incident reports via email to responsible company personnel, whenever it is triggered, but would not block or encrypt the data.

Using DLP policies in testing mode is a valuable option for organizations that want to understand how often sensitive data is shared externally without immediately enforcing restrictions. In testing mode, DLP policies generate incident reports and send them to designated personnel, providing insights into data sharing practices without blocking or encrypting the data.

And of course, the most important part is educating users on sharing company data externally. That is why DLP also features policy tips. Tips appear as a small notification to warn users on the sensitivity of the data in a document or email and suggest handling data responsibly. This message can be customized according to company needs.

User education is a critical component of effective data protection. DLP features policy tips that appear as small notifications, warning users about the sensitivity of the data they are handling and suggesting responsible practices. These messages can be customized to align with the organization’s policies and guidelines.

If you are interested in learning more about how data loss protection policies can benefit your organization, please contact us at sales@imagisinnovations.com. Our team is ready to help you implement effective DLP strategies to safeguard your sensitive data.