Extending DLP Controls to Eliminate Blind Spots in Web and Cloud Data Security

Since they’re directly accessible through web interfaces, web vulnerabilities are among the most exploited types of security flaws. Many of these web attacks exploit injection flaws and broken access controls to target web applications and services. 

And though they trail web-based attacks in terms of overall volume, cloud vulnerability exploits continue to surge. Cloud vulnerabilities tend to be less about inherent flaws in cloud infrastructure and more about mismanagement or misconfiguration.

Regardless of whether you’re focused on stopping web-based attacks or cloud-based ones—the core objective is to protect your organization’s data and operations.

Many web and cloud security solutions treat data as an afterthought

Traditional web security solutions focus on identifying and blocking access to malicious websites, with few in the space truly prioritizing data security. Several web security solutions even lack data loss prevention (DLP) capabilities altogether.  And many of the web security tools that do include DLP functionality tend to offer a limited feature set that’s backed by superficial controls.

Compared to their web counterparts, cloud security solutions are a newer development. And while cloud security solutions tend to focus on securing data in the cloud, they typically rely on homegrown DLP engines to do so. And these homegrown engines are built by vendors that don’t consider DLP a core strength, or are just starting to really focus in on it.

In both cases, web security or cloud security solutions that include incomplete DLP implementations leave your organization with glaring blind spots supported by inadequate controls for sensitive data and fragmented visibility. These blind spots cause problems—adding friction that hinders employee productivity, or even worse, potential misidentification of sensitive data could lead to non-compliance with national data regulations.

Dedicated DLP can offer better visibility, but problems still exist

Dedicated DLP solutions can potentially provide more effective visibility of sensitive data.  However, many dedicated DLP solutions primarily focus on endpoint controls or email controls and only offer limited integrations with web and cloud security solutions, relying primarily on ICAP integration with these systems which can lead to increased latency and lower productivity for users depending on where the traffic is coming from or going to. 

There is a newer crop of cloud-based DLP providers that focus primarily on SaaS applications. However, they often lack controls for other critical channels covered by the more mature data security vendors. The result is that organizations are often forced to stitch together offerings from multiple vendors, hoping to minimize the fragmentation by aggregating information into a Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) tool.

A unified cloud and web data security platform that eliminates blind spots

How much would it simplify things if one vendor could bring together capabilities like cloud-native integrations of all major data exfiltration channels with an industry-leading DLP engine highly accurate visibility into the use and movement of sensitive data across the organization? 

And how helpful would it be to extend your ability to protect all sensitive data from leaving your organization across all channels from endpoint to the cloud and everywhere in between?

This approach eliminates fragmented visibility and control to help maintain productivity by reducing errors in identifying sensitive data and implementing consistent controls everywhere.

Watch this video to see how Forcepoint DLP controls extend to Forcepoint Web Security.