AI-Powered Cyberattacks: How to Detect, Prevent & Defend Against Intelligent Threats

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Data Loss Prevention
(Proactive DLP)

Detect and Block Sensitive Data in Files and Emails

Data Loss Prevention (DLP) can help prevent potential data breaches and regulatory compliance violations by detecting and blocking sensitive, out-of-policy, and confidential data in files and emails, including credit card numbers and social security numbers. OPSWAT Proactive DLP supports a wide range of file types, including Microsoft Office and PDF. AI-powered Document Classification detects adult content in images and offensive language in text.

Overview

Manage Compliance with
OPSWAT Data Loss Prevention

To comply with industry regulations, such as Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI), Health Information Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA), General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), organizations have the obligation to keep personally identifiable information (PII) private.

Also, in today's increasingly litigious and highly competitive business environment, the privacy of confidential business information is an essential lifeline for every enterprise. Confidential information, such as trade secrets, intellectual assets, financial statements, can be disclosed or sent to unauthorized individuals via a multitude of channels, including email, the internet, portable storage devices, and cloud services. Data breaches can be costly, damage a company’s brand and reputation, and diminish the trust of customers and partners.

illustration proactive dlp process flow to prevent data breaches

OPSWAT Proactive DLP can help organizations prevent sensitive and regulated data from leaving or entering the organization’s systems by content-checking files and emails before they are transferred. MetaDefender can search over 110+ file types for sensitive content, including Microsoft Office, PDF, CSV, HTML and image files.

Types of Sensitive Data OPSWAT Proactive DLP Detects

MetaDefender detects the following sensitive and secret data in files:
  • Social Security numbers
  • Credit card numbers 
  • IPv4 addresses 
  • Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR) 
  • Custom regular expressions (RegEx) 
  • Secrets in text files (AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform) 
  • Protected health information (PHI) and PII in Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) files 
  • Detect adult content in images and toxic language in text 
  • Detect personal identity documents
  • PCAP (Packet Capture) File Anonymization

Data Anonymization for Privacy Compliance

Ensure compliance and protect sensitive data with AI-powered anonymization using advanced NLP and NER (Named Entity Recognition) technology. Proactive DLP detects and anonymizes PII and PHI from DICOM files, safeguarding privacy while maintaining data usability.

Benefits of Data Loss Prevention (DLP)

Prevent sensitive and confidential data from entering or leaving an organization without hindering the productivity of users.

Prevent secret leaks by automatically identifying various data structures such as API keys, passwords, key IDs, or access keys generated by third-parties.

Locate and classify unstructured text into predefined categories with machine-learning powered AI.

Aid compliance with data regulations and industry-standard security requirements such as PCI, HIPAA, Gramm-Leach-Bliley, FINRA and more.

Establish custom policies to meet your specific policy requirements.

Integrate Proactive DLP with MultiscanningDeep Content Disarm and Reconstruction and File-based Vulnerability Assessment for comprehensive protection.

Data Loss Prevention (DLP) Works by:

  • Proactively detect and block sensitive data in files and emails in 110+ supported file types.
  • Automatically redact identified sensitive information in PDFs, MS Word documents and MS Excel spreadsheets.
  • Leverage Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology to detect and redact sensitive information in image-only PDF files or PDF files having embedded images.
  • Utilize our AI-powered named-entity recognition (NER) model to locate and classify unstructured text into predefined categories, such as personally identifiable information (PII).
  • Remove metadata containing potentially confidential information like name, company, subject, GPS locations, authors, among others.
  • Detect not safe for work (NSFW) content, including adult content in images and offensive language in text, with AI-powered document classification.
  • Detect personal identity documents and allow or block them based on company policy.
Use Cases

OPSWAT Proactive DLP

Content-Check File Uploads and Downloads

With MetaDefender Core and MetaDefender ICAP Server, you can content-check files for sensitive data when they are uploaded or downloaded from web applications, as well as check files that are being transferred through web proxies, secure gateways, web application firewalls, and storage systems.

Check Emails for Sensitive Information

To aid compliance with PCI and other regulations, as well as protect your customers, MetaDefender Email Security can prevent emails with sensitive content from leaving or entering the organization by content-checking the email body and attachments. MetaDefender Email Security can identify credit card numbers or social security numbers, as well as alert administrators when emails include content that matches custom regular expressions.

Content-Check Files Transferred Through Air-Gapped Networks

With MetaDefender Kiosk, you can content-check files when they are being transferred to and from your critical air-gapped networks and block PII, business critical data, and top-secret content by using custom regular expressions.

Identify New Custom Sensitive Information in Existing Content

All files stored within MetaDefender Managed File Transfer are continuously checked for sensitive information. Therefore, if you set new custom sensitive information types based on regular expressions, matched information will be automatically detected and redacted once the files are re-scanned. Scans can take place periodically or by request.

Products

OPSWAT Products That Offer Proactive Data Loss Prevention

  • MetaDefender Core

    Integrate Proactive Data Loss Prevention via REST API with existing security architectures and file uploads and downloads features on web portals.

  • MetaDefender ICAP Server

    Prevent sensitive data from being transferred through your web proxies, secure gateways, web application firewalls, and storage systems.

  • MetaDefender Email Security

    Content-check emails and attachments for PII and sensitive data based on custom regular expressions.

  • MetaDefender Kiosk

    Prevent PII or confidential content from being transferred to and from critical air-gapped networks.

  • MetaDefender Managed File Transfer

    Content-check all files transferred and stored in secure networks for sensitive and regulated data.

  • MetaDefender Drive

    Prevent sensitive data leak from files stored in portable devices.

  • MetaDefender Storage Security

    Prevent PII and sensitive data loss from enterprise data stored in Cloudian, S3, Box, Dropbox, and other storage providers.

Resources

Proactive DLP

  • Blog

    OPSWAT Proactive DLP Unveils AI-Powered Document Classification

    Proactive DLP now detects not safe for work (NSFW) content in images and text. It also classifies personal identity documents based on common document structures, enabling organizations to block suspicious out-of-policy documents.

  • Blog

    Data Privacy Week 2022: Mitigating Threats with Proactive DLP from OPSWAT

    Data Privacy Week originated as an extension of Data Protection Day in Europe and is promoted every year through the National Cybersecurity Alliance. The annual international holiday is intended to...

  • Blog

    Proactive DLP - Advanced Detection Policy is Now Available

    At OPSWAT, we are continuously enhancing Proactive DLP (Data Loss Prevention) features and policy configurations to better meet our customers’ diverse needs for data protection. We offer flexibility...

  • Blog

    Don't Trust What You See

    “Appearances can be deceptive,” the adage goes. The same notion applies to digital content, where people with malicious intent can trick our eyes into believing what they want us to see online. To...

  • Blog

    Block Phishing Content with Proactive DLP

    OPSWAT Proactive DLP (Data Loss Prevention) key functionality is to detect and protect sensitive and confidential data from breaches. With a few alterations in configuration, you can also leverage...

  • Blog

    The Value of Data, and How to Keep it Safe

    This blog post is the third of an ongoing cybersecurity training series sponsored by OPSWAT Academy which reviews the technologies and processes required to design, implement, and manage a Critical...

  • Blog

    Detect and Remove Sensitive Data in Cropped Images Embedded in Word Files 

    Cropping pictures inserted in an Office file (such as a Word document, PowerPoint presentation, or Excel workbook) is a widely used feature in Microsoft Office apps. This crop tool enables users to... 

  • Blog

    What is Data Loss Prevention (DLP)?

    Data loss prevention is a security measure that protects organizations from unauthorized access, transfer, or sharing of sensitive information and data. Learn how DLP works, why it’s important, best practices, and more.

  • Customer Story

    Protecting an Automotive Manufacturer from File-Borne Threats

    Securing File Scanning, Transfers, and Visitor Management for a Global Automotive Manufacturer with OPSWAT Solutions

Learn How Data Loss Prevention (Proactive DLP) Helps Protect Your Infrastructure