In the digital age, data is one of the most valuable assets a company can possess. However, with the increasing value of data comes the increasing risk of data loss, breaches, and non-compliance with data protection regulations. This is where Symantec Data Loss Prevention (DLP) comes into play. As an industry-leading solution, Symantec DLP is designed to mitigate these risks by providing comprehensive discovery, monitoring, and protection of your data. This review aims to provide an in-depth look at Symantec DLP, its features, ease of use, integration capabilities, customer support, potential shortcomings, and overall value.
Product Overview
Symantec DLP is a robust solution that provides total visibility and control over your information, regardless of where it resides. Whether it’s at the endpoint, in storage, over the web and email, or in the cloud, Symantec DLP ensures your data is protected. This is achieved through a combination of critical data protection, accurate visibility, unified DLP policies, and regulatory compliance facilitation.
Key Features
A. Critical Data Protection
One of the standout features of Symantec DLP is its ability to offer critical data protection. This feature ensures that your confidential data remains safe from accidental exposure or malicious breaches. In today’s digital landscape, where data breaches are becoming increasingly common and costly, this feature is invaluable. It provides peace of mind knowing that your sensitive data is protected, allowing you to focus on your core business operations.
B. Accurate Visibility
Symantec DLP provides accurate visibility into where your sensitive data lives and moves. This feature is particularly useful for businesses that handle large amounts of sensitive data. With Symantec DLP, you can easily track your data, whether it’s at the endpoint, in storage, over the web and email, or in the cloud. This level of visibility is crucial in ensuring that your data is protected at all times.
C. Unified DLP Policies
Symantec DLP offers unified DLP policies, providing a single policy framework to detect and remediate both on-premises and cloud-based incidents. This unified approach not only simplifies data protection but also ensures that no data slips through the cracks. It reduces complexity and makes it easier to manage your data protection efforts.
D. Regulatory Compliance Facilitation
In addition to its data protection features, Symantec DLP also facilitates regulatory compliance. This feature makes it easier for businesses to comply with global data protection laws and regulatory requirements. This is particularly useful for businesses operating in highly regulated industries such as healthcare and finance.
E. Ease of Use
Despite its comprehensive feature set, Symantec DLP is praised for its ease of use. The solution is designed to provide accurate data protection with content-aware detection technologies that reduce both false positives and negatives. This means that the solution can accurately identify sensitive data without flagging non-sensitive data, thereby minimizing the impact of your DLP efforts on end-users.
The solution also allows you to find confidential information stored virtually in any location and file format. This feature is particularly useful for businesses that handle a wide variety of data types and formats.
Integration Capabilities
In today’s digital age, integration capabilities are a must for any software solution. Symantec DLP does not disappoint in this regard. The solution integrates seamlessly with various cloud apps such as Office 365, G-Suite, Box, and Salesforce. This means that you can extend your existing security policies to the cloud, ensuring that your sensitive data remains protected even when it leaves your organization’s perimeter.
Furthermore, the integration capabilities of Symantec DLP extend beyond just cloud applications. The solution also integrates with various on-premises systems and databases, providing a unified data protection solution across your entire IT infrastructure. This level of integration is crucial in today’s complex IT environments, where data often resides in multiple locations and formats.
Installation and Setup
The installation and setup process of Symantec DLP is straightforward and user-friendly. The management console is easy to learn, and the solution offers a range of configurable modules that help identify, secure, monitor, and manage data in motion, storage, endpoints, and the cloud. This makes it easy for businesses to get up and running with Symantec DLP quickly.
Customer Support
Customer support is a crucial aspect of any software solution, and Symantec DLP excels in this area. Users have praised the solution’s customer support for their prompt and helpful responses to queries and issues. This ensures that users can make the most out of the solution and quickly resolve any issues that may arise.
Potential Shortcomings
While Symantec DLP is a powerful and comprehensive DLP solution, it does have some potential shortcomings. These include:
- The solution can generate a large number of notifications, which can be overwhelming.
- Some settings can be challenging to complete, which can lead to a steep learning curve for some users.
- The solution’s detection based on regular expressions is reported to be subpar.
Some users have reported that the solution can generate a large number of notifications, which can be overwhelming. This can lead to notification fatigue, where important notifications are overlooked due to the sheer volume of notifications.
Additionally, some settings can be challenging to complete, which can lead to a steep learning curve for some users. This can be particularly challenging for smaller businesses that may not have dedicated IT staff to manage the solution.
Furthermore, the solution’s detection based on regular expressions is reported to be subpar, which can lead to inaccurate data detection. This can result in false positives or negatives, which can undermine the effectiveness of your data protection efforts.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Symantec DLP is a robust and comprehensive solution for data loss prevention. It offers a wide range of features and capabilities that make it a top choice for businesses looking to protect their sensitive data. Despite a few shortcomings, its ease of use, integration capabilities, and excellent customer support make it a reliable choice for businesses of all sizes.
While the solution does have a few potential drawbacks, such as a large number of notifications and a lack of compatibility with Linux, these are outweighed by its many strengths. Its comprehensive feature set, ease of use, and excellent customer support make it a standout solution in the data loss prevention landscape.
Overall, if you’re looking for a robust and reliable solution to protect your sensitive data, Symantec DLP is a solid choice. Its comprehensive feature set, ease of use, and excellent customer support make it a standout solution in the data loss prevention landscape. With Symantec DLP, you can rest easy knowing that your sensitive data is protected, no matter where it resides.
However, potential users should be aware of the solution’s potential shortcomings and consider these in the context of their specific needs and IT environment. Despite these shortcomings, Symantec DLP remains a strong contender in the data loss prevention market and is well worth considering for businesses of all sizes.
