Using DLP tools for cloud computing security

Using DLP tools for cloud computing security

Rich Mogull

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One of people's biggest concerns about adopting cloud computing is the potential risk to their data. Anytime we "lose" physical control of an asset, it's only natural to worry about it. And since data loss prevention is one of only a handful of security technologies dedicated to protecting data, it's also only natural we take a hard look at expanding it to protect that cloud-based data.

Today there are three different business problems related to cloud computing where DLP   is helpful. The first is to use it as a tool to control the migration of data to the cloud. The second is as a control to protect data in the cloud. And finally, we can use DLP tools to find sensitive data that's "leaked" to the cloud.

Using DLP tools to control data migration

One of the most useful ways to use DLP for cloud computing is to monitor, and even block, data migrations to the cloud from your traditional infrastructure. The vast majority of cloud computing services rely on HTTP as their main out-of-the box communications protocol (albeit often through custom APIs). Thus, if you monitor HTTP (and HTTPS), you'll catch many potential data migrations across the spectrum of cloud service models.

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