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How do I stop my users from sharing company data?

Quick definition  ⓘ
Why it matters: More and more work data now lives in the cloud, making it too easy for employees to share data in a variety of ways with people outside the company.
50Percent
Proportion of enterprise workloads and related data now occurring in the public cloud, contrary to the expectations of just a few years ago.https://info.flexera.com/CM-REPORT-State-of-the-Cloud

Key Points

  • It's easier today than ever before for users to share company data inappropriately
  • To control sharing of cloud data, deploy a Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB) solution
  • To control sharing of data in email or on a workstation, deploy a Data Loss Prevention (DLP) solution
  • Remember to educate users and implement employee policies as well
© Sasinparaksa / Dreamstime

The modern world is purpose-built to make data sharing easy, but as a company this isn't always what you want. That's where CASB and DLP come in.

Quick Read

Data is more easy to share, in more ways, and in less time, than ever before. This presents a problem to companies, for whom data is both a key asset and a key risk. How do you stop internal company data from making its way into the wrong hands, especially in a world designed to encourage data to flow with as little resistance as possible?

For companies that are heavily invested in cloud software, storage, and applications such as Google Workspace or Microsoft 365, the first defense against data sharing is the deployment of a Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB). CASB platforms integrate with your identity provider on side and with cloud platforms on the other to enable granular controls over cloud data.

CASB enables you to regulate who or which groups of users can copy, edit, download, delete, or share files (and, in the latter case, with whom), and under which conditions, giving you extra (and centralized) control over how your data behaves in, flows into, and flows out of your assortment of cloud applications.

Beyond CASB lie Data Loss Prevention (DLP) platforms, which go a step further in providing control over how (and whether) users can move data on and off of their endpoint (their computer or workstation), including enabling regulation of things like removable media, copy-and-paste functionality, and what can be sent in or attached to email.

Solutions like these also often provide other kinds of controls, such as regulation around what locations, times of day, or machines users must be using in order to perform an operation, and even what websites they can visit or what they can do on particular websites.

The goal in each case is the regulation of data flows—both in the cloud and on the local workstation—to prevent company data from making its way into the wrong hands. Plurilock's own Plurilock AI CASB and DLP solutions lead the industry in customer satisfaction according to Info-Tech Research Group, outpacing on this front outpacing offerings from Microsoft, Cisco, Oracle, and Prisma, among others.

Because of the complexity and learning curve associated with CASB and DLP deployment, it's important that you select a provider that can get you up and running cost-effectively and with a minimum of fuss and frustration.

—Aron Hsiao

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What Plurilock Offers
Generative AI Safety and Guardrails for Workforces
SSO, CASB, and DLP with Real-Time Passive Authentication
Passwordless SSO, CASB, and Endpoint Data Loss Prevention

More to Know

© Siri Wannapat / Dreamstime

Simplicity and Ease of Use Matter

For small- to mid-sized organizations in particular, it's important to select CASB or DLP solutions that are both affordable at list and that can be deployed and managed without an army of in-house experts. This is where customer trust-oriented solutions like Plurilock AI shine.

© Emiliezhang / Dreamstime

Don't Forget Policy

It's important to have the right technical tools and controls in place, but it's also important to educate employees about what may and may not be shared, and under what circumstances. Remember as you roll out CASB or DLP to also roll out employee handbook items and training.

Quick Definition

Data loss prevention (DLP) tools enable organizations to implement controls on who can act on data, in what ways, based not only on file or resource-level access controls, but on awareness and classification the substance of the data as well.

DLP software platforms often consist of a variety of components notably including endpoint controls that enable policy to be set around the means by which data is transmitted or shared—file copy and send operations, clipboard copy and paste, email and other communications channels, and storage devices, among other things.

From an integrated perspective, data loss prevention also includes considerations around physical and building security, policy and procedure, and other factors that help to protect organizations' most sensitive and confidential data.

As cloud computing grows, data loss prevention is also evolving to include controls and policy to manage how data moves through and between cloud systems, in many cases never traversing local endpoints or local networks at all.