The 10 Best Data Leak Prevention Tools

Need to create a data leak prevention strategy?

Wondering where to start and what tools to use?

Data leaks can have serious consequences for any organization.

Beyond the loss of customer trust and reputational damage, they can result in substantial fines and legal repercussions.

For example, in 2023, Meta was fined $1.3 billion for GDPR privacy violations.

In this post we’ll cover the main components of a data leak prevention strategy, what causes data leaks and the top 10 tools organizations can use to prevent data leaks.

What causes data leaks

Before we talk about the components of a data leak prevention strategy, what are the major causes of data leaks in the first place?

Data leaks are caused by a number of factors. These range from human error to technical vulnerabilities.

Here are the top 5 primary factors that cause data leaks:

1. Weak or Stolen Credentials: Cybercriminals use weak or stolen passwords to gain unauthorized access to sensitive data. Infostealer malware is a common cause of stolen credentials.
2. Human Error: Accidental sharing of sensitive information through email, cloud storage, or social media. This can include misconfigured privacy settings, sending information to the wrong recipient, or leaving sensitive documents unsecured.
3. Malware and Ransomware: Malicious software can be used to infiltrate systems, exfiltrate data, or encrypt data for ransom, leading to potential data leaks.
4. Insider Threats: Employees or contractors with malicious intent can intentionally leak data for personal gain, revenge, or other motives.
5. Outdated or Unpatched Software: Vulnerabilities in software that are not promptly patched can be exploited by attackers to gain access to sensitive data.

RECOMMENDED READING: 5 Most Common Causes of Data Breaches

Who needs to implement a data leak prevention strategy

Now that we’ve covered what causes a data leak, let’s talk about who this is relevant for.

Data leak prevention is essential for any company with access to sensitive data.

Common use cases include:

• Businesses and Corporations: Any organization that handles sensitive data, such as customer information, financial records, intellectual property, or trade secrets, needs to implement data leak prevention to protect their assets and maintain customer trust.
• Government Agencies: Government entities often handle classified or sensitive information that requires protection from unauthorized disclosure.
• Healthcare Organizations: Due to the sensitive nature of medical records and personal health information, healthcare providers are required to implement data leak prevention strategies to comply with regulations like HIPAA.
• Financial Institutions: Banks, credit unions, and other financial services providers need to prevent data leaks to protect customer financial information and comply with industry regulations like GLBA and PCI DSS.
• Educational Institutions: Schools, universities, and research institutions handle student records, research data, and other sensitive information that needs to be protected from leaks.
• Legal Firms: Law firms deal with confidential client information, case details, and other sensitive data that require data leak monitoring.
• Retailers and E-commerce Businesses: These organizations handle customer data, payment information, and proprietary business information that needs to be safeguarded against leaks.
• Non-profit Organizations (NPOs): NPOs handle sensitive data, including donor information, financial records, and personal details of beneficiaries. Data leak monitoring can help detect if any of this information has been compromised and is circulating on the dark web.
• Manufacturing and Industrial Companies: These organizations often possess sensitive information related to patents, designs, and manufacturing processes that require protection.
• Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs): Even smaller businesses that handle personal data, customer information, or have intellectual property should implement data leak prevention strategies to protect their assets and reputation.

RECOMMENDED READING: Making the case for dark web monitoring

Creating a data leak prevention strategy

Data leak prevention is essentially a strategy and set of tools used by organizations to prevent unauthorized access to sensitive information.

A data leak prevention strategy should include a variety of tools to effectively protect sensitive information from unauthorized access or exposure. The key components that should be part of a data leak prevention strategy include:

1. Data Discovery and Classification Tools: These tools help identify and categorize sensitive data within an organization, making it easier to apply appropriate security measures and policies.
2. Data Loss Prevention (DLP) Software: DLP software monitors and controls the movement of sensitive data across endpoints, networks, and cloud environments. It can prevent unauthorized sharing, transfer, or storage of sensitive information.
3. Data Leak Monitoring: Implement data leak monitoring to detect if your organization’s sensitive data, such as credentials or intellectual property, is being traded or exposed on the dark web. Early detection can help you respond quickly to potential data breaches and mitigate risks​
4. User Activity Monitoring: Monitoring user behavior can help detect and prevent potential data leaks by identifying suspicious or unauthorized actions involving sensitive data.
5. Security Information and Event Management (SIEM): SIEM tools aggregate and analyze security logs and events from various sources to detect potential security incidents and data breaches.
6. Access Control and Identity Management: Implement strong access controls to ensure that only authorized personnel can access sensitive data. This includes using multi-factor authentication (MFA) and role-based access controls (RBAC).
7. Endpoint Security Solutions: Endpoint security tools, such as antivirus and anti-malware software, protect devices from threats that could lead to data leaks.
8. Network Security Solutions: Solutions like firewalls, intrusion detection systems (IDS), and virtual private networks (VPNs) help secure network connections and prevent unauthorized access to data.
9. Encryption Solutions: Encryption tools ensure that data is unreadable to unauthorized users, both at rest (stored data) and in transit (data being transferred over networks).
10. Incident Response and Forensics: Having an incident response plan and forensic tools in place ensures that you can quickly respond to and investigate data leak incidents.

Top 10 data leak prevention tools

Now that we’ve defined the key components of a successful data leak prevention strategy, here are our top 10 tools for each category:

1. Data Discovery and Classification Tools: Varonis DatAdvantage provides visibility into where sensitive data is located, who has access to it, and how it’s used. It helps organizations identify exposed data and enforce least-privilege access to reduce the risk of data breaches.
2. Data Loss Prevention (DLP) Software: Digital Guardian provides a data-centric security platform that protects sensitive data from insider and outsider threats. It offers visibility and control over data movement across endpoints, networks, and cloud environments.
3. Data Leak Monitoring: Breachsense specializes in early warning and prevention of account takeover attacks by monitoring the dark web for exposed credentials, session tokens, upcoming attacks, and leaked company data. It helps organizations proactively protect against data breaches and account fraud by alerting them to compromised data.
4. User Activity Monitoring: Teramind offers user activity monitoring to track and analyze user behavior to prevent insider threats and data leaks. It provides real-time alerts and detailed reports to help organizations detect and respond to suspicious activities.
5. Security Information and Event Management (SIEM): Splunk ES is a SIEM solution that provides real-time visibility into security data and events. It helps organizations detect and respond to threats with advanced analytics and automated workflows.
6. Access Control and Identity Management:Okta is a cloud-based identity management platform that provides secure access to applications and data. It offers single sign-on (SSO), multi-factor authentication (MFA), and lifecycle management to ensure only authorized users have access to sensitive information.
7. Endpoint Security Solutions: CrowdStrike Falcon is a cloud-native endpoint protection platform that offers threat detection and response. It uses machine learning and behavioral analytics to prevent attacks and stop breaches in real-time.
8. Network Security Solutions: Palo Alto Networks offers firewalls that provide comprehensive network security, including threat prevention, URL filtering, and application control. They help organizations protect their networks from attacks and unauthorized access.
9. Encryption Solutions: Vormetric Transparent Encryption offers data-at-rest encryption for files, databases, and applications. It provides granular access controls and detailed audit logs to ensure data security and compliance.
10. Incident Response and Forensics: Guidance Software EnCase offers forensic investigation and incident response tools. It provides deep visibility into endpoints and helps organizations collect and analyze evidence to respond to security incidents.

Takeaways

Data leak prevention requires a comprehensive strategy that includes a combination of technical controls, policies, and employee training to protect sensitive information from unauthorized access or exposure.

We outlined the key components of a successful data leak prevention strategy as well as listed the top 10 tools in each category.

As part of that strategy, preventing data leaks requires continuous dark web monitoring.

This enables your security team to reset leaked credentials before criminals can exploit them.

If you need visibility into your organization’s leaked data, Book a demo to see how Breachsense can help.