In the modern world of business, sensitive information is of great importance. With cloud-based services at its helm, protection from data loss and exposure has never been so crucial. Office 365 includes a very strong feature in Data Loss Prevention to provide protection for sensitive data in business, ensuring compliance and evasion of breaches that can be costly. This article explains why DLP in O365 is a very critical investment for any kind or size of business.

Understanding Data Loss Prevention (DLP)

Data Loss Prevention, abbreviated as DLP, involves technologies and practices that prevent sensitive information from being shared, either involuntarily or on purpose, with unauthorized individuals. It ensures that critical data, such as personally identifiable information or intellectual property, remains inside the enterprise and is not leaked outside or stolen.

Office 365 can be configured with DLP policy detection, monitoring, and protecting sensitive data with automatic actions upon detection of specified information types and control of its sharing inside and outside the organization.

Why Is DLP Important to Businesses?

• Data Loss Prevention: Each business deals in information that is sensitive, either related to customer information, internal financial information, or IP. When this information gets lost either inadvertently or due to leakage, it translates into loss of prestige, customers, and litigation. Using the DLP feature of O365, organizations are able to find sensitive content within email, SharePoint sites, or OneDrive accounts on the network to make certain it doesn’t leave the organization to unauthorized parties.
• Regulatory Compliance: Regulatory compliance features among the top agendas of most organizations irrespective of the industry segment. General Data Protection Regulation, Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, are some of the leading acts that require stringent controls over sensitive data handling. Non-compliance with these laws attracts substantial fines. With O365’s DLP tools, it’s much easier to stay compliant due to protection against sensitive information being shared or used for any other purpose. Being able to create custom policies around industry-specific regulations automatically flags-or blocks-actions that go against compliance rules.
• Preventing Human Error: Most of the data breaches in the organizations originate from human error where employees send confidential data to a wrong recipient accidentally. DLP within O365 minimizes this risk by alerting users automatically when they try to share sensitive information. For instance, if an employee tries to send a document that contains financial data to an external party, the system may prompt him for confirmation or block the action completely.
• Improved Visibility and Control: DLP in O365 provides detailed reporting and analytics on the activities of data, which allows business insight into the utilization and sharing of sensitive information. This enables a business to take proactive steps to enhance security measures, audit data access, and address any potential risks before they become bigger problems.
• Maintaining Customer Trust: A breach in data will annihilate customer trust. If customers feel that their personal information is not secure, it makes them less willing to want to continue doing business with you. By implementing O365 DLP, a business can show it is committed to the security and protection of data, thereby assuring customers that their data is safe. This can prove to be an advantage over competition, especially in markets where privacy is a major concern.

How Does DLP Work in O365?

O365 DLP policies enable you to do the following:

• Sensitive Information Specification: Office 365 does deep content analysis to identify sensitive information patterns of credit card numbers, social security numbers, or medical records on Office applications like Exchange, SharePoint, and OneDrive.
• Action Your Own Policies: You can create your policies to monitor and control data flow according to your organization’s needs and compliance requirements.
• Automated Responses: A DLP policy can automatically block the transmission, alert the user, or send notifications to the administrators when sensitive data is being shared inappropriately .
• Cross-Platform Integration: O365 DLP works across your email, cloud storage, and collaboration tools to extend protection no matter where your data resides.

Data protection has ceased to be a choice for any organization; it is a compulsion. DLP in O365 allows each organization to wrap its sensitive data in super-strong armor-to keep the hackers away and to maintain compliance with governmental regulations by protecting sensitive data, maintaining compliance, mitigating several associated risks arising due to leakage of data. Adoption of DLP policies within Office 365 will go a long way in giving any business assurance of security for important information, ensuring continuity and customer trust in the long run.
If your organization hasn’t yet adopted DLP, it’s high time that you did. Never wait for a breach to occur but instead keep everything before it with the features provided by O365 on Data Loss Prevention.

If your business hasn’t yet implemented DLP or if you need assistance in optimizing your data protection strategies, reach out to us at OrrinTech. Let us help you secure your sensitive information and maintain the trust of your customers in an increasingly complex digital landscape.