Zscaler Report Finds Shift to Cloud Is Increasing Risk of Data Loss

Zscaler has been making significant advancements in data protection to help enterprises mitigate security risks and simplify operations. This month, the cloud security provider unveiled zero configuration for data loss prevention (DLP), which cuts down the time it takes organizations to carry out data protection from months to hours. DLP tools have been available for years, but the traditional on-premises products are complicated and do not scale easily across locations. Cloud-delivered products are well aligned with the hybrid work era as businesses can deploy enterprise-grade security anywhere, including people's homes.

The new service builds upon Zscaler’s expertise in securing data across all cloud apps — whether it’s data in motion, data at rest, or bring your own device (BYOD) assets. Unlike traditional DLP solutions that can’t secure distributed data and require extensive configurations, Zscaler uses advanced auto-classification capabilities to accelerate setup and reduce security team overhead, according to vice president of product management Moinul Khan.

ZK Research recently interviewed Khan about the importance of data protection in the cloud. Khan explained that Zscaler takes a platform approach where data protection, secure web gateway (SWG), cloud access security brokers (CASB), and zero trust network access (ZTNA) are integrated into one platform. These elements all come together in security service edge (SSE), a security category introduced by Gartner in 2021.

Related:Companies Lack Capabilities to Secure Cloud Infrastructure: Report

SSE secures access to the web, cloud services, and private apps. SSE is aligned to the same principles as Zscaler’s cloud-native Zero Trust Exchange for securely connecting users, apps, and devices over any network. Zero Trust Exchange is a security cloud that processes 170 million files per day. Zscaler focuses on contextual DLP and different types of files that leave the premises, rather than traditional DLP, which cannot inspect structured and unstructured data.

The problem with traditional DLP is it requires continual policy tweaking, ongoing management by large teams, and substantial overhead. Organizations that lack zero trust data protection are more likely to have unresolved incidents and longer mitigation timelines for security breaches. A 2022 Data Loss Report by the Zscaler’s ThreatLabz research team found that organizations experience an average of 10,000 potential data loss events daily, resulting in damages of more than $4.35 million.

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