Sunil Choudrie
Head of Product Marketing for InfoSec, Broadcom
April 7, 2025
5 Min
Data loss prevention (DLP) is a priority for any organisation that handles sensitive information. Without it, they risk costly data exposure and non-compliance which can result in regulatory fines, reputational damage and customer losses that could take years to rebuild. Yet despite the clear benefits, many organisations are deterred by the potential complexity involved with building a full scale DLP system. We know data security, like cybersecurity, is complex yet critically important. The right technology can make a huge difference; a great DLP system can reduce complexity in the long term, address your major risks and improve operational efficiency. Symantec DLP helps organisations stay secure and compliant by stopping sensitive information falling into the wrong hands. With the threat landscape constantly expanding, and huge growth in data volumes, the right DLP solution is your insurance against current and future data loss.
Breaking it down, there are several key qualities that make an effective DLP system. But there are two that will help you home in on the right solution for your business. First, any good DLP system will have the capacity to find all of your data. Almost isn’t good enough, if you want to avoid sensitive information slipping through the cracks.
Secondly, and this is why some DLP projects fall at the first hurdle, the right solution will protect your critical data without making you work hard for the privilege. Data loss prevention is complex, but that doesn’t mean your solution has to be. In fact, a core part of DLP’s value should be streamlining your security processes and easing compliance. On the front end, it should be easy to operate and, on the back end, integrate seamlessly with your other technologies.
Number one on your DLP wishlist should be the capacity to track down all of your data. Put simply, anywhere you have data, sensitive information could be hiding. A great DLP solution has eyes everywhere. It can see your data as it is used by AI tools, in the cloud, across local and network drives, endpoints, file shares, email clients and more. Endpoints can be treasure troves for sensitive information particularly as data can be sent via browsers to the cloud. Knowing where to look is half the battle, and the right DLP solution will be able to detect your sensitive data everywhere it exists. But beware – not all DLP solutions are so thorough.
Automation is critical to doing this effectively and efficiently – and ensuring sensitive information is properly classified. A good DLP solution will be able to automatically identify, analyse and classify sensitive data – and do it continuously. The policies it uses to do so will be consistent and tailored to your business. Automated classification enhances accuracy and efficiency, reducing the risk of human error, and ensures your data governance policies are applied correctly across the board.
And when an incident is detected, i.e. a risk of potential data loss, you need a solution that tells you what has happened so you can quickly intervene as necessary. An intelligent system can learn how you prioritise incidents and automate the response where possible. A high quality solution will offer many remediation workflows, routing incidents to incident teams, business owners or automatic actions to increase the speed and accuracy of response without overwhelming your DLP specialists. Symantec DLP’s solution lets you customize response rules to match your business processes and remediate 60-70% of incidents automatically (often more). This makes things easier on your overstretched security teams and helps ensure the overall success of your DLP program.
To manage all of the above – and consistently get it right – a great DLP solution can’t be too complex. There’s no getting around it. Securing all of your sensitive data, all the time, is never going to be a breeze. But the right DLP system should make this easier, not more challenging. Look for unified solutions that police your sensitive data from a single, integrated set of policies, one which enforces data governance based on cohesive response rules that can be enforced everywhere. Such a solution will work everywhere – on premise, in the cloud, and on devices – providing joined-up workflows that protect your data and ease compliance.
Reducing complexity in your DLP system is critical to staying secure and compliant. It brings increased data visibility, so you can clearly see and quickly act on potential vulnerabilities. And it reduces the chance of misconfigurations, resulting in missed threats and data leakage. The less fragmented your data governance policies are, the easier they are to implement, enforce and adapt.
This in-built flexibility will serve you well in the long term. Regulators are always raising the bar and customers are increasingly demanding. And threat actors will never stop looking for new ways to infiltrate your data. A DLP system that offers total data protection – with sophisticated simplicity – has more chance of securing your data and operational efficiency. Against this backdrop, good enough won’t cut it – the stakes are just too high. Investing in a quality DLP system is a sound investment in your organisation’s success.
Symantec’s trusted experts can help ensure your DLP strategy aligns with your business needs, matching data governance policies with your risk profile and regulatory requirements. Whatever your challenges, we can help you build an effective and efficient DLP program.
Get in touch to discuss how Symantec DLP can help you cover all the bases without reinventing the wheel.