Email is the threat vector security leaders are most worried about protecting.
It’s the most common channel for data exfiltration, fraud, and targeted attacks such as impersonation and phishing, and it’s the major point of egress for sensitive data. And, in most cases, the root cause of these incidents is human error.
Employees break the rules, make mistakes, and can easily be tricked or hacked.
This begs the question: what’s the best solution?
This blog evaluates legacy data loss prevention (DLP) solutions and is based on an extensive whitepaper available for download. The whitepaper provides greater depth and compares human layer security (HLS) with the legacy security solutions discussed here.
Why Aren’t Legacy Data Loss Prevention (DLP) Solutions Effective?
While DLP provides value in certain cases, it does not solve the fundamental problem facing organizations – how to keep data secure in the real world where the information and attachments in emails move and are always accessible to anyone.
Once data leaves the point of control, whether at the endpoint or the network, DLP no longer has control over that content.
If your emails contain information and files that are forwarded and accidentally exposed to the wrong people, there is very little that DLP can do.
In this blog, we’ll focus on the five biggest problems with legacy DLP solutions. Remember: you can download the whitepaper for a more detailed analysis.
Does Not Protect Against Accidental Data Loss
Rules-based approaches simply cannot detect accidental data loss – for example, when emails are sent to the wrong people or the wrong file is attached – because there are no regex or pattern matches that can be applied. This level of protection requires context that DLP just doesn’t have.
But, it’s important, especially when research shows at least 800 emails are sent to the wrong person every year in organizations with 1,000+ employees.
The HLS Difference: Tessian Guardian automatically detects and prevents misdirected emails and misattached files.
DLP Focuses on a Negative Control Model
Legacy DLP is very strict with a binary approach to protecting data. It either allows it or blocks it. In a post-perimeter architecture, this is highly disruptive to business and unsustainable.
The HLS Difference: Tessian is frictionless; it’s invisible until you need it, which has helped enterprise customers across industries prevent data loss, without impeding productivity. Read our customer stories to learn more.
Slow, Cumbersome and Non-adaptive
85% of security leaders say DLP is admin-intensive.
Legacy DLP must analyze all content and try to match it to block lists. This requires extensive analysis and the matching can be wrong as enterprise email content is constantly changing.
As content and locations get more complex, legacy DLP can develop problems very quickly.
The HLS Difference: Tessian uses contextual machine learning, and our ML models have been trained on more than two billion emails – rich in information on the kind of data people send and receive every day. Importantly, they continue to automatically adapt and learn as human relationships evolve over time. Learn more about our technology.
Difficult and Expensive to Implement
While DLP may be regarded as a check-the-box solution for compliance, it is incredibly cumbersome, complex, and expensive to deploy, often requiring huge spend in professional services to implement and maintain.
Typical deployments are at least 12 months which makes it hard to justify the return on investment vs. the security it provides.
The HLS Difference: With Tessian, there is no pre-configuration required, and the platform starts preventing threats within 24 hours of deployment.
