Data Loss Prevention for PII/PHI/PAN, IP & Regulated Content
Data Loss Prevention (DLP) prevents sensitive data from being exposed, misused, or exfiltrated—on endpoints, in SaaS, across web/email, and inside clouds/data centers. SolveForce builds DLP that is accurate, actionable, and auditable: you get clear policies, low false positives, safe controls (block/quarantine/watermark/encrypt), and evidence that satisfies audits.
Where DLP fits in the SolveForce model:
🔒 Security (Semantics) → Cybersecurity • 🧠 Analytics/Automation → SIEM / SOAR
🔑 Identity & Access → IAM / SSO / MFA • 🔐 Zero Trust → ZTNA • SASE
📱 Device trust → MDM / UEM • 🛡️ Endpoint → EDR / MDR / XDR
🪪 Keys & certs → Key Management / HSM • PKI • Encryption
☁️ Cloud & DC → Cloud • 🖧 Fabric → Networks & Data Centers
🎯 Outcomes (What SolveForce DLP Delivers)
- Real control, low noise — accurate detection with policy actions you can trust.
- Coverage where users really work — endpoints, SaaS, web/email, storage, and collaboration.
- Inline Zero-Trust — enforce least privilege for data: watermark, read-only, redact, encrypt, or block.
- Audit-ready — full timelines, artifacts, decisions, and approvals for PCI/HIPAA/ISO/NIST/CMMC.
- Measurable improvement — fewer incidents, lower “shadow IT” risk, better user behavior.
🧭 DLP Scope (Where We Enforce)
- Endpoints — copy/paste, screenshots, print, removable media, local exports.
- Email — content/attachment inspection; quarantine/purge; tag/watermark.
- Web / SWG — uploads to websites, file shares, unsanctioned SaaS; restrict per domain/category. → SASE
- SaaS / CASB — sanctioned SaaS (Drive/SharePoint/Box/Slack/etc.): share controls, watermark, read-only, external collaborator gates. → SASE
- Cloud storage & objects — buckets/containers/objects (SSE-KMS, tags, server-side encryption). → Cloud • Encryption • Key Management / HSM
- Data centers — file servers, NAS/SAN zones; microseg protections. → Networks & Data Centers
- Collaboration — link expiries, classification banners, block public links, AIP/labels alignment.
- Printing/Scans — watermark, logging, or deny for sensitive classes.
🧱 Policy & Classification (How We Know What to Protect)
Data Classes (examples)
- Personal: PII (names, addresses, SSNs, national IDs, phone, email).
- Health: PHI (diagnoses, treatment codes, records).
- Payment: PAN, CVV, IBAN, routing/account numbers.
- Financial & HR: payroll, salary bands, tax docs, performance reviews.
- IP/Trade Secrets: source code, models, designs, research.
- Legal/Regulatory: export-controlled, attorney-client, investigations.
Detectors (combined for accuracy)
- Validators/regex with checksums (e.g., Luhn for card numbers).
- Dictionaries & keyword proximity (industry terms near PII tokens).
- Document fingerprints (exact/near-exact match of templates/contracts).
- File-type & structure (PDF, CSV, office formats; embedded content).
- ML/NLP classifiers (contextual cues for IP/PHI/PII where patterns are weak).
- Labels/metadata (AIP/Sensitivity labels, headers/footers, custom tags).
Best practice: build tiers (Public, Internal, Confidential, Restricted) and map them to actions per channel.
🧰 Controls (What Happens When We Detect)
- Block / Quarantine — prevent send/upload; quarantine a copy for review.
- Watermark / Read-Only — watermark documents; open in read-only; disable download on SaaS.
- Redact / Mask — remove or obfuscate sensitive fields (e.g., partial PAN).
- Encrypt — require S/MIME, TLS, or server-side encryption with customer-managed keys for stored objects. → Encryption • Key Management / HSM
- Coach — just-in-time warning with user justification option for borderline cases.
- Isolate — open the destination in Remote Browser Isolation (RBI) or restrict to managed device via ZTNA. → ZTNA
- Ticket & Notify — open case, notify data owner/legal/IR; require manager/legal approve for release.
Inline where it matters
- Endpoint agent: acts before content leaves the device.
- SWG/CASB/SSE: acts on web/SaaS flows at edge PoPs. → SASE
- Email gateway: quarantines or rewrites with encryption/watermark.
🔒 BYOD, Contractors & Partners (Practical Zero Trust)
- BYOD: require work profiles/app containers; apply per-app VPN; enforce DLP only in work container. → MDM / UEM
- Contractors/partners: clientless ZTNA with read-only/watermarks; prevent download for unmanaged devices. → ZTNA
- Admin access: PAM elevation with session recording when data is sensitive. → PAM
🧩 Integrations (Make DLP Part of the System)
- Identity — ABAC/RBAC, SSO/MFA, group-based exceptions. → IAM / SSO / MFA
- Device — posture gates (encryption on, EDR healthy, OS at minimum). → MDM / UEM • EDR / MDR / XDR
- Network — SD-WAN/NAC for microseg/quarantine; block/shape exfil channels. → SD-WAN • NAC
- Cloud — on-ramps and storage controls; object tagging/auto-encrypt. → Direct Connect • Cloud
- Keys & Certs — customer-managed keys (CMK), envelopes, JWKS rotation. → Key Management / HSM • PKI
- Analytics/IR — send events and artifacts to SIEM; trigger SOAR playbooks for review/contain. → SIEM / SOAR
📐 SLO Guardrails (Experience & Safety You Can Measure)
| Metric | Target (Recommended) | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Inline decision latency (web/SaaS) | ≤ 50–150 ms at edge PoP | Keep UX crisp |
| Endpoint decision time | ≤ 250–500 ms | Local cache of policies |
| False positive rate | ≤ 3–5% | Use fingerprints + validators |
| True positive precision (priority) | ≥ 92–95% | After tuning |
| Incident review SLA (Sev-2) | ≤ 24 h | Business day triage |
| Evidence completeness | 100% for Sev-1/2 | Timelines + artifacts |
| Coverage (channels/policies online) | ≥ 95% | Enforced & reporting |
🧪 Tuning Loop (Keep Signal High, Noise Low)
- Pilot with coaching → gather user justifications, refine rules.
- Add validators/fingerprints → reduce regex-only hits.
- Split policies by channel → stricter on web/email than internal shares.
- Stage to block → after two-week stable precision on coached rules.
- Review exceptions weekly → retire stale exceptions; enforce labels.
- Measure & publish → false/true positive trends, incident closure time, user behavior improvements.
🧾 Compliance Mapping (Examples)
- PCI DSS — PAN handling; masking/redaction; encryption at rest/in transit; logging.
- HIPAA — PHI protection; minimum necessary; audit controls.
- ISO 27001 / 27002 — classification, handling, transfer controls, monitoring.
- NIST 800-53/171 — AC, AU, MP, SC families; boundary protections and monitoring.
- CMMC — CUI handling; access, audit, and media protections.
Evidence streams to SIEM with WORM/immutability options and case IDs. → SIEM / SOAR
📦 Data Architecture Aids (Make DLP Easier)
- Label at creation (AIP/Sensitivity labels) in authoring tools; default to Internal.
- Tokenize high-risk fields (PAN/PII) upstream; store surrogates in app DBs. → Key Management / HSM
- Encrypt by default (SSE-KMS, TDE, field encryption) with customer-managed keys. → Encryption
- Watermark sensitive exports; store immutable logs of data actions.
🧰 Implementation Blueprint (No-Surprise Rollout)
- Inventory data flows — where data is created, stored, moves, and exits.
- Define classes — PII/PHI/PAN/IP; map to label tiers and actions.
- Select channels — endpoint, email, SWG, CASB, storage; start with the highest-risk flows.
- Pilot policies — coach-only; collect justifications; measure precision/recall.
- Stage to enforce — block/encrypt/watermark for true-positives; keep coaching for gray areas.
- Wire analytics & IR — SIEM dashboards; SOAR review & containment playbooks.
- Educate — short, specific user prompts; show why an action was blocked and how to remediate.
- Audit packs — policy docs, policy→action maps, sample incidents, evidence exports.
✅ Pre-Engagement Checklist
- 📄 Data inventory & classes (PII/PHI/PAN/IP/Legal).
- 👥 Identity model (groups/roles) and device posture baseline. → IAM / SSO / MFA • MDM / UEM
- 🌐 Channels (endpoint, email, web, SaaS, storage) and priority flows.
- 🔐 Crypto posture (SSE-KMS, TDE, CMK ownership). → Encryption • Key Management / HSM
- 📊 SIEM/SOAR destinations, incident SLAs, and review cadence. → SIEM / SOAR
- 🧪 Pilot ring users/teams, coaching vs block plan, policy owners.
- 🧾 Compliance targets (PCI/HIPAA/ISO/NIST/CMMC) and evidence format.
🔄 Where DLP Fits (Recursive View)
1) Grammar — content rides Connectivity & the Networks & Data Centers fabric.
2) Syntax — delivery patterns in Cloud determine where to inspect and act.
3) Semantics — Cybersecurity preserves the truth of data handling.
4) Pragmatics — SolveForce AI enriches context, reduces noise, and suggests safe actions.
5) Foundation — consistent terms via Primacy of Language.
6) Map — indexed across the SolveForce Codex & Knowledge Hub.
📞 Launch DLP That Users (and Auditors) Accept
Related pages:
Cybersecurity • IAM / SSO / MFA • ZTNA • SASE • MDM / UEM • EDR / MDR / XDR • SIEM / SOAR • Key Management / HSM • PKI • Encryption • Cloud • Knowledge Hub