Clearswift Data Loss Prevention - Short Review

Clearswift Data Loss Prevention (DLP) Overview

Clearswift Data Loss Prevention (DLP) is a comprehensive, non-disruptive solution designed to protect critical information from unauthorized disclosure, whether the data is in use, in motion, or at rest. This data and people-centric solution is part of Fortra’s cybersecurity offerings and is engineered to support continuous collaboration without interrupting business operations.

Key Objectives

• Protect Sensitive Data: Clearswift DLP mitigates the risk of financial or reputational damage caused by the unauthorized disclosure of sensitive data across various environments, including endpoints, on-premise systems, and cloud storage.
• Ensure Compliance: The solution helps organizations comply with data security policies and regulations, such as GDPR, HIPAA, and Sarbanes-Oxley, by enforcing data usage policies and identifying data leaks.

Key Features and Functionality

Data in Use

• The Clearswift Critical Information Protection Agent (CIP Agent) ensures data loss prevention on endpoint devices, whether online or offline. It monitors and controls data written to external devices like USB drives and DVDs, ensuring that only approved file types are used.

Data in Motion

• The Clearswift Secure Gateway families, including the Secure Email Gateway, Secure ICAP Gateway, and Secure Web Gateway, provide critical information protection for data shared via email, web, and online collaboration tools. These gateways integrate with various servers (e.g., Symantec, F5, Squid) and offer features like adaptive redaction, anti-virus/malware protection, and multi-layered anti-spam.

Data at Rest

• The CIP Agent conducts periodic scans of local hard disks and mounted shares to locate and secure sensitive information stored on laptops, public areas of the network, or cloud-based storage. This ensures that critical information is moved to more secure locations if necessary.

Functional Benefits

• Granular Policy Control: Allows for controls on a per-user or organizational unit (OU) level, enabling tailored security policies.
• Device Management: Controls access by bus and device type, regulating what company data can be copied to removable media and encrypting it if necessary.
• Cloud Access Control: Manages access to standard cloud sharing services such as OneDrive, Dropbox, and Box.
• Adaptive Redaction: Automatically redacts sensitive information or encrypts content in real-time, ensuring only acceptable levels of information are shared and received.
• Integrated Security: Includes features like integrated anti-virus/malware, URL filtering, and spyware protection to ensure comprehensive security.
• Compliance and Governance: Ensures compliance with regulatory requirements, identifies data duplication, and manages obsolete documents.

Business Benefits

• Protect Brand and Reputation: Safeguards against data breaches that could damage the organization’s reputation.
• Protect Intellectual Property: Maintains a competitive edge by securing sensitive information.
• Financial Protection: Avoids financial fines and cleanup costs associated with data breaches.
• Secure Collaboration: Enables secure collaboration both internally and externally without disrupting business operations.
• Automation and Efficiency: Automates vital business processes and reduces the management overhead of enforcing DLP policies.

Deployment and Integration

• Modular Approach: Allows organizations to select solutions that meet immediate business needs and deploy additional solutions as required.
• Compatibility: Complements existing solutions without the need for a full replacement, integrating with systems like Microsoft 365 and various cloud services.

Clearswift DLP is designed to scale to enterprise deployments, offering a robust and flexible solution for protecting critical information across all aspects of an organization’s data lifecycle.