Data Protection Made Simple

Protecting data is no easy task. It’s a multi-faceted and complex undertaking, which is why our customers are constantly seeking new ways to simplify data protection without sacrificing security. And when our customers offered high praise for pre-release features and improvements evaluated within their own real-world environments, I matched their enthusiasm with my own. You see, whether it’s about improvements to their operational workflows, enhancing their detection or better integrating DLP technology within their wider environment, our customers know what makes security better. That’s why I’m pleased to announce that today, the latest version of Symantec DLP is now available. 

Here's what Symantec DLP 16.1 delivers

Building on the innovations already baked into 16.0 and keeping the DLP administrator our main focus, Symantec DLP 16.1 offers new, game-changing features spanning data detection enhancements, improved workflow, simpler operations for DLP administrators to manage their solution and stronger integrations. Let me highlight some areas that users raved about during customer trials.

Source Code Classification

We have introduced a number of new data detection classifiers that customers can use to detect content including source code, financial reports (U.S. 10-Q and 10-K reports, as well as W2 tax statements) and image-based documents (driver’s licenses, passports and bank checks). The inclusion of source code has been of particular interest to customers to satisfy compliance requirements and mitigate the risk of losing sight of source code that may make its way into Large Language Models.

Personal Email Detection

Symantec DLP already provided several controls designed to help customers assess and manage insider risk. For example, in DLP 16 we created a tighter integration between user risk analytics and DLP policy so that customers can set data access and protection policy controls based on user risk scores. 

One popular way for users to exfiltrate data is to simply email the information to a personal email account. Drawing on Symantec Email Security expertise, we now provide an intuitive, pragmatic control that reduces the risk of information being sent from a corporate to a personal domain. A simple check box activates the policy to identify emails a user is sending to their personal email account (saving you from the manual hassle of managing lists of your employees’ personal email addresses).

New Response Rule Conditions

To simplify the ongoing process of adjusting DLP policies and response rules, DLP 16.1 empowers administrators with the ability to set the response based on certain criteria—and the feedback has been nothing but positive. DLP 16.1 offers automated responses that can be set based on several attributes (user group membership, sender and recipient patterns, and more). This supports policy consolidation since now a broad policy can be defined while maintaining attribute-based responses. 

Reusable Keyword Lists

DLP 16.1 also delivers another simplification by enabling keyword lists to become a reusable policy component. DLP administrators can take existing keyword lists and convert them to be a reusable keyword “building block” that can be centrally stored/managed and referenced in multiple places. If the keyword list is updated, all policies that reference it reflect these changes. Not only does this simplify the task of creating new policies, but it ensures consistency across existing and future policies.

Purview IP Classification Extended to Data at Rest

Our existing Microsoft Purview Information Protection (PIP) integration to label data is further enhanced with DLP 16.1. With this latest release, you can now use Symantec DLP to classify documents on file and network shares using the High Speed Discovery scan (introduced in DLP 16.0). This integration allows you to scan large, static file repositories to meet compliance needs. And now, the High Speed Discovery scan can use new or modified policies to classify files appropriately and ensure they will be properly protected. 

We kept the DLP administrator experience for this enhancement since classification scans do not generate incident reports (so we won’t overwhelm incident response teams).

Get the details in this new webinar

These are just some of the highlights. DLP 16.1 packs quite a punch, and includes many other features like:

• Policy language updates
• New reports and enhanced workflows
• A new REST API detection server software form factor
• Policy lifecycle management with “Policy As Code” (in preview)

For more information, read the release notes and register here for an upcoming webinar where we will walk through the release highlights.