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Implement Data Loss Prevention To Run A Safer Business

October 1, 2014

Network security and data loss prevention have become increasingly important in running your business. Unfortunately, though, it’s also been more difficult to prevent hackers from accessing your network.

According to Bits, a New York Times blog, there were 621 confirmed data breaches and over 47,000 reported security incidents in 2012. But Verizon’s 2014 Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR) unveils that, in 2013, those numbers rose to 1,367 and 63,427, respectively.

Of the confirmed data breaches last year, 35 percent were in the form of Web app attacks, 22 percent were cyber espionage, 14 percent were POS intrusions, 9 percent were card skimmers, and 8 percent came from insider misuse.

Data loss prevention tools – or DLP tools – are designed to detect and prevent unauthorized transmission of data to outside parties. These tools process highly classified or sensitive information, and they are prevalent with government agencies as well as banking and insurance companies.

What Does Threat And Data Breach Prevention Do, Exactly?

The term data loss prevention seems fairly self-explanatory, but there is a number of components that go into these network tools. A formidable DLP tool constantly monitors your network for threats and recommends suitable rules to optimally safeguard your data. Such a product should:
  • Provide complete visibility into your applications, content, hosts, network behavior, operating systems, protocols, users, and more.
  • Control your applications, execute mobile polices, thwart social media threats, and reduce the attack surface.
  • Leverage security automation to fight attacks and breaches more swiftly and efficiently.
  • Automatically recommend security-unique rules for your network and give you the ability to create and modify rules and signatures.

What Your Network Is Missing 7 Tools To TAP

How To Connect DLP Tools To Your Network

With data loss prevention tools protecting your network, you have far less risk of breaches and attacks, but it’s very important that these tools connect to your network properly. A DLP tool’s ability to have complete visibility into your network is essential. SPAN ports are common connection devices, but they do not give you the connectivity you need and have fundamental vulnerabilities and complexities.

A network TAP, on the other hand, gives the tool complete visibility into the flow of traffic on your network and requires little to no configuration on your part. Once installed, your DLP tool has 100-percent data capture. It receives exact copies of your network traffic, layer one and two errors, and malformed packets, ensuring your network’s strength. In addition, network TAPs are far more secure, with no IP address and no way for an attacker to know about the presence of data loss prevention tools on your network.

As data breaches continue to rise, your network’s security is only going to become more important. Data breach prevention is critical to protect your information and safeguard the sanctity of your network and business.

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Heartbeats Packets Inside the Bypass TAP

If the inline security tool goes off-line, the TAP will bypass the tool and automatically keep the link flowing. The Bypass TAP does this by sending heartbeat packets to the inline security tool. As long as the inline security tool is on-line, the heartbeat packets will be returned to the TAP, and the link traffic will continue to flow through the inline security tool.

If the heartbeat packets are not returned to the TAP (indicating that the inline security tool has gone off-line), the TAP will automatically 'bypass' the inline security tool and keep the link traffic flowing. The TAP also removes the heartbeat packets before sending the network traffic back onto the critical link.

While the TAP is in bypass mode, it continues to send heartbeat packets out to the inline security tool so that once the tool is back on-line, it will begin returning the heartbeat packets back to the TAP indicating that the tool is ready to go back to work. The TAP will then direct the network traffic back through the inline security tool along with the heartbeat packets placing the tool back inline.

Some of you may have noticed a flaw in the logic behind this solution!  You say, “What if the TAP should fail because it is also in-line? Then the link will also fail!” The TAP would now be considered a point of failure. That is a good catch – but in our blog on Bypass vs. Failsafe, I explained that if a TAP were to fail or lose power, it must provide failsafe protection to the link it is attached to. So our network TAP will go into Failsafe mode keeping the link flowing.

Glossary

  1. Single point of failure: a risk to an IT network if one part of the system brings down a larger part of the entire system.

  2. Heartbeat packet: a soft detection technology that monitors the health of inline appliances. Read the heartbeat packet blog here.

  3. Critical link: the connection between two or more network devices or appliances that if the connection fails then the network is disrupted.

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