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DLP in Office 365: How to Protect Your Critical Data

By May 13, 2020No Comments6 min read
DLP in Office 365 protect critical data

The data breach has become the biggest nightmare for every business. Costs related to data loss depend on your company industry and size. However, you can still get a general idea. The maximum cost of a data breach can be $4-5 million. These are also just the monetary costs. Your customers will also become dissatisfied with your company. Also, a data breach can completely tarnish your business reputation. Thus, data security is becoming the most important thing with time.

Most businesses are using cloud platforms for doing their daily tasks. They can protect their personal and company data by using a modern workplace like Office 365. Office 365 is the best SaaS toolset available in the market. These software suites also support cloud technology. Also, they have built-in DLP capabilities. This is very important for modern companies. It will help you in limiting the data accessibility. Also, it will help you in protecting this data. In this article, we are going to talk about the importance of DLP.

What is DLP?

DLP or Data Loss Prevention is a simple set of processes that your business can use for protecting its data. These strategies are helping businesses in protecting their corporate data.

DLP is already supported by enterprise software. It is used for detecting potential data breaches. Also, DLP can help you in preventing these security breaches. These security breaches can be both malicious or accidents. Your customer details, health records, and financial data generally fall under the sensitive data category. It is very important to protect this data. There are many security compliances that focus on this type of data. Thus, you should try to protect this data.

DLP strategies are helping organizations in following security regulations. It will protect your data from attackers.

Why is DLP important?

Data breaches are becoming more common with time. According to a report by Bitdefender, more than 34% of USA companies have already faced a data breach. More than 75% of companies were unaware that the data breach ever occurred. Also, most data breaches actually result from hacker attacks.

If you are using a DLP solution, then it will help you in protecting your sensitive data. It will ensure that your employees are not sharing sensitive data with outsiders. These solutions will help you in meeting the strict compliance regulations. If you are using cloud services, then you must use applications like Office 365. These applications are using strong DLP solutions for protecting their user data.

What is Office 365 DLP?

Microsoft is providing an in-built security feature with their tools. This will help you in protecting your data. MS is supporting DLP for many years now. You can use it for defining and managing your policies.

It will allow you to automatically classify your sensitive data. Also, you can limit access of your users to certain data. If someone has violated your policies, then Office 365 will notify your admin.

DLP will help you in staying compliant. Also, you don’t need to interrupt your users for staying compliant. You can email your employees if they are trying to share sensitive information. Thus, they can review their decisions. If they have some justification, then they can share this sensitive data. This is available on all the Office 365 apps like Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook, and word.

In simple words, Office 365 DLP solution will help you in protecting the integrity of your data. Thus, you can use it for preventing data loss. This is very important for your organization. It will help you in reducing the probability of data breaches.

How does it help?

DLP is very important for your admins. It will help your admins in setting the policies for the Office 365 suite. This will ensure that they can protect your information. Also, you will always stay compliant with the latest security regulations. This will help you in preventing data loss.

DLP can automatically find sensitive data in your database. They will use some factors for detecting this data. These factors are mostly defined by the admin. You can use internal functions or keywords for finding this data. However, it can be difficult to implement office 365 DLP. We are going to share some practices that will help you in implementing DLP.

  1. Understand your existing policies: Most companies already have existing security policies. It is important to document these policies. If you are modifying your policies, then they should be also present in this document.
  2. Inventory Data: You should understand the type, format, and location of data you are storing in your inventory.
  3. Limit Access: You should document all the people that have access to your sensitive data. Your employees or stakeholders might have access to your data. Thus, it is important to create a list of people with access. If someone needs access to certain data, then you can limit their access.
  4. Consistency is the key: This is the hardest step for every business. You need to be consistent if you want to prevent data breaches. Your stakeholders should help you in protecting this data. It is important to modify your security policies according to the business needs.

Conclusion

DLP is becoming the most important thing for modern companies. These tools can help you in protecting your sensitive information. Also, these DLP solutions will help you in staying compliant. There are many security compliances like GDPR and NBD that companies need to follow. Thus, you should create a strong data protection policy. Office 365 DLP is the best way to protect your data. Your admins will have full control over their data. Thus, they can easily import, store, and classify your data. There are many manual DLP processes available in the market. However, Office 365 DLP is perfect for modern companies. It can automate security processes. Also, it will help you in staying compliant. If you need more information regarding Office 365 DLP, then you can contact Bleuwire.

Contact us today to learn about Bleuwire™  services and solutions in how we can help your business.