Data is the lifeblood of productivity, and protecting sensitive data is more important than ever. With cyber threats rapidly evolving and data privacy regulations tightening, organizations need to be vigilant and proactive in protecting their most valuable assets. But how do you build an effective data protection framework?
In this article, we consider streamlining data protection best practices from meeting compliance requirements to streamline your day-to-day operations. Whether you’re a small or medium-sized business or have large businesses, these top strategies can help you build strong defenses against violations and keep sensitive data safe.
1. Define the data goals
When working on a data protection project, the first step is always to understand the outcome you want.
First, understand the data you need to protect. Identify Crown Jewel Data and where you think it lives. (It’s probably more distributed than expected, but this is an important step that will help you define the focus of protection.) Work with your business owner to find data that is outside the typical range that you need to protect.
All this is to answer the question, “What data will the company hurt if it violates?”
Second, we will work with C-Suit and the board of directors to define what a data protection program will look like. Understand your budget, risk tolerance for data loss, and the resources you have (or resources you need). Define how aggressive your protection program is so that you can balance risk and productivity. Every organization needs to balance the two.
2. Automate data classification
Next, we begin our data classification journey. That is, find and catalog data. This is often the most difficult step in the journey, as organizations constantly create new data.
Your first instinct may be to try and keep up with all the data, but this may be a fool’s errand. The key to success is to have classification capabilities for data movements everywhere (endpoints, inlines, clouds) and jump when risk arises depending on DLP policies. (This will be explained in more detail later.)
Automating data classification is becoming a lifesaver thanks to the power of AI. AI-powered classification can be faster and more accurate than traditional methods of classifying data using DLP. The solution you are evaluating should use AI to ensure that data can be discovered and discovered instantly without human input.
3. Focus on Zero Trust Security for Access Control
Adopting a Zero Trust architecture is important to ensure that modern data protection strategies are effective. Zero Trust assumes that security threats can come from within or outside the network based on Maxim, “Never trust, never test it all the time.” All access requests are authenticated and authorized, significantly reducing the risk of unauthorized access and data breaches.
Look for a zero trust solution that highlights the importance of the most major access control between users and apps. This approach reduces the ability of users to not access the network, threats travel sideways and propagate to other entities and data on the network. The principle of least privilege allows users to only have access to the role and reduce the attack surface.
4. Centralize DLP for consistent warnings
Data Loss Prevention (DLP) technology is at the heart of data protection programs. That being said, it should be noted that DLP is just a subset of larger data protection solutions. DLP uses data classification (along with AI) to accurately locate sensitive data. Make sure your DLP engine can consistently and correctly alert you with the same data across devices, networks and clouds.
The best way to ensure this is to employ a centralized DLP engine that can cover all channels at once. Avoid point products that bring your own DLP engines (endpoints, networks, CASBs). This causes multiple alerts for a single moving data, slowing down incident management and response.
Take Gartner’s Security Service Edge approach, which provides DLP from centralized cloud services. As your program grows, we will focus on vendors that support most channels so that you can easily add protection to your devices, inline and the entire cloud.
5. Check the blocks of the entire main loss channel
Once you have a centralized DLP, focus on the data loss channels that are most important to your organization. (You’ll need to add more channels as you grow, so make sure your platform can grow with them all.) The most important channels vary, but all organizations focus on specific, common channels.
Web/Email: How users accidentally send sensitive data outside their organization. SaaS Data (CASB): There is another common loss vector, as users can easily share data from outside. Endpoint: A key focus for many organizations considering lockdowns on USB, printing and network shares. Unmanaged Devices/BYOD: If your BYOD footprint is large, browser isolation is an innovative way to protect data heading towards these devices without an agent or VDI. The device is placed in a separate browser to perform DLP inspections and prevent cutting, pasting, downloading or printing. (We’ll go into this in more detail later.) SaaS Posture Control (SSPM/Supply Chain): SaaS platforms like Microsoft 365 can often be misunderstood. Continuous scanning of gaps and high-risk third-party integrations is key to minimizing data breaches. IAAS Posture Control (DSPM): Most companies have a lot of sensitive data beyond AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud. Finding it all and closing the dangerous misconceptions that expose it is the driver behind Data Security Attitude Management (DSPM).
6. Understand and maintain compliance
Handling compliance is a key step in good data protection. Depending on the industry (GDPR, PCI DSS, HIPAA, etc.), you may need to keep up with various regulations. These rules are there to ensure that your personal data is secure and that your organization is processing it the right way. Get information on the latest missions to avoid fines and protect your brand while building trust with customers and partners.
Strong data governance practices are essential to maintain compliance. This means keeping regular security audits, keeping good records and ensuring that your team is well trained. It employs technical approaches that help promote better compliance, such as data encryption and monitoring tools. By making compliance part of your routine, you can go ahead of risk and ensure that data protection is effective and meets your requirements.
7. BYOD’s Strategy
While not a concern for all organizations, unmanaged devices present unique challenges for data protection. Organizations do not own these devices or have agents, so they cannot ensure security posture or patch levels or wipe them remotely. However, users (such as partners and contractors) have good reasons to access important data.
They do not want sensitive data to land on the BYOD endpoint and disappear from view. So far, solutions for securing BYOD have revolved around CASB reverse proxy (problemous) and VDI approach (expensive).
Browser separation provides an effective and eloquent way to protect your data without the cost and complexity of these approaches. By placing BYOD endpoints in an isolated browser (part of the edge of security services), you can provide excellent data protection without an endpoint agent. Data is streamed as pixels to the device, allowing it to interact with the data, but prevents downloading and cutting/pasting. You can also apply DLP inspections to sessions and apply data based on policies.
8. Control cloud attitude with SSPM and DSPM
Cloud posture is one of the most commonly overlooked aspects of data hygiene. The SaaS platform and public cloud have many settings that teams with no security expertise can easily overlook. The resulting misconceptions can lead to a dangerous gap in exposing sensitive data. Many of the biggest data breaches in history came as such gaps allowed the enemy to walk quickly.
SAAS Security Attitude Management (SSPM) and Data Security Attitude Management (DSPM in IAAS) are designed to help identify and correct these risks. By leveraging API access, SSPM and DSPM can continuously scan cloud deployments, find sensitive data, identify incorrect equipment, and repair exposures. Some SSPM approaches also provide integrated compliance with frameworks such as NIST, ISO, and SOC 2.
9. Don’t forget to do data security training
Data security training is often where data protection programs collapse. If users don’t understand or support data protection goals, dissent can be built across the team and derail the program. You spend time building training programs that emphasize goals, and value data protection brings your organization. Make sure you support and sponsor our data security training initiatives.
Some solutions offer built-in user coaching with incident management workflows. This valuable feature allows users to notify incidents via Slack or via email regarding justification, education, and policy adjustments as needed. By participating in incidents, you can promote awareness of data protection practices and ways to identify and safely handle sensitive content.
10. Automate incident management and workflows
Finally, without daily operations, your data protection program will not complete. It is important that your team manages efficiently and responds quickly to incidents. One way to ensure a streamlined process is to employ solutions that allow workflow automation.
Designed to automate common incident management and response tasks, this feature can be a lifesaver for IT teams. By saving time and money while improving response times, the less the team can do more. Find solutions with powerful workflow automation delivery integrated into SSE to efficiently and centralize incident management.
Put it all together
Data protection is not a one-off project. It’s a continuous commitment. Information about best data protection practices can help you build resilient defenses against evolving threats and ensure long-term success for your organization.
Remember: Data protection investments aren’t just about reducing risk and preventing data breaches. It is also about building trust, maintaining reputation and unlocking new opportunities for growth.
For more information, please visit zscaler.com/security
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