The 6 Best Data Loss Prevention Software Solutions and How to Decide

According to FEMA, approximately 60% of small businesses never reopen after data loss. This is why having data loss prevention mechanisms are crucial for your business. Data breaches are serious and affect businesses of all sizes. You are not protected if you run a small business instead of a massive one.

To help you secure your data and servers, we’ve shortlisted six of the best data loss prevention (DLP) software after extensive research and trial.

Let’s discuss them in detail.

McAfee Total Protection For Data Loss Protection

For the last two decades, McAfee has been among the leaders in the anti-virus, data privacy, and cyber security industries.

McAfee Total Protection DLP is a comprehensive data loss prevention software that ensures complete security and protection in all business environments, whether your data is in the cloud or on your network.

It also helps your business ensure compliance and safeguards your data with automated reporting. Additionally, it provides you with flexible deployment options to manage common policies and streamline incident workflows.

McAfee Total Protection is a suite that includes several data loss prevention tools like McAfee DLP Discover, McAfee DLP Prevent, McAfee DLP Monitor, and McAfee DLP Endpoint.

Together, these tools offer 360 protection for your critical business data and help you manage your data in a secure and well-documented environment.

They do so by giving you clarity on how your data is being used and where it may be leaking. Plus, it classifies data and marks the most critical information for your business. This allows for better data security management and resource allocation. Finally, it ensures that any data transmissions that violate your policies are immediately encrypted, redirected, quarantined, or blocked to prevent any data losses.

McAfee Total Protection Pros

Offers a comprehensive suite of data loss prevention tools
Supports cloud data protection policy implementation
Offers real-time network scanning for any potential breaches

McAfee Total Protection Cons

Not a beginner-friendly solution because of its complex implementation procedure
Not designed for small businesses or individual users

McAfee Total Protection Pricing

McAfee’s website does not feature its pricing details. To get a custom quote for your business and see a free demo, you’ll need to contact their support team.

Endpoint Protector

Endpoint Protector is a multi-purpose and award-winning data loss prevention software that allows businesses of all sizes to identify data leakages and protect sensitive business information from unauthorized use.

Endpoint Protector uses an advanced multi-OS data loss prevention system that ensures regulatory compliance at all points. As a result, you can deploy it to virtual systems, in-house networks, and cloud services such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud Platform (GCP).

You can use Endpoint Protector to configure real-time alerts and reports for ongoing events to prevent data theft. It provides you detailed logs related to file transfers, devices used, or unusual user activity to help you identify any suspicious events. It also comes with SIEM integration which allows you to set up custom dashboards and user analysis reports based on system logs.

Other salient features of Endpoint Protector include outside network and outside hours policies, offline data protection, and rapid deployment in all business environments.

Endpoint Protector Pros

Protects business resources and ensures uninterrupted workflow by minimizing false positives
Offers pre-defined policies for easy and hassle-free deployment
Provides a single dashboard from which to control all connected devices and data flow

Endpoint Protector Cons

User interface is not intuitive and has a learning curve
Users have frequently complained about slow customer support

Endpoint Protector Pricing

Endpoint offers custom pricing based on your OS, the number of endpoints, and the data you’re trying to protect. To get a custom quote, contact their support team.

Kaspersky Endpoint Security

Kaspersky Endpoint Security is an AI-powered anti-virus and data security application suite that allows small, medium, and enterprise businesses to safeguard their critical business information and conduct business in a secure environment.

It prevents data leakages by helping you formulate and apply data management policies and secure your sensitive data through multi-layered threat protection with additional proactive technologies such as Application, Web, and Device controls, vulnerability and patch management, and data encryption into an EDR-ready endpoint agent with an extensive systems management toolkit.

It offers advanced data encryption to prevent any unauthorized data access. As a result, even if your physical devices are stolen, criminals and unauthorized users cannot access your data in any way.

As a result, Kaspersky provides adequate data loss prevention and security to your data, whether it’s based in-house, virtual, or in the cloud.

Kaspersky Endpoint Security Pros

Provides protection driven by machine learning that’s effective even without regular updates
Offers data security solutions for businesses of all sizes and forms
Affordable solution compared to other DLP software

Kaspersky Endpoint Security Cons

Users have frequently noted poor customer support
Consumes excessive system resources

Kaspersky Endpoint Security Pricing

Kaspersky Endpoint Security offers custom pricing plans based on your business needs. However, its base plan starts from a one-time license fee of $405. Pricing is based on the size of your business. It classifies small businesses as one to 100 employees, medium companies as 101-999 employees, and enterprise-grade as 1000+ employees.

Forcepoint DLP

Forcepoint DLP is another high-quality data loss prevention software that helps secure your data and prevent unauthorized usage. It uses behavioral analytics to respond to system threats proactively and secures your endpoint through dynamic monitoring control enforcement.

Using Forcepoint DLP, you can protect your system from potential threats via online activity and email and allow secure data migration through USBs, external hard drives, networks, and other data sources.

It uses an integrated UAM system that facilitates real-time risk scoring based on user activity and data sensitivity. Additionally, it allows you to categorize your data and define access protocols depending on its usage frequency and criticality.

One of Forcepoint’s biggest strengths is its ability to facilitate frictionless business operations. It doesn’t let data security get in the way of your daily operations and ensures that your team’s productivity isn’t compromised. It achieves this through unified policies, user risk management, and system automation.

This allows you to protect intellectual property, prevent data breaches, and ensure that your critical business information is always in safe hands.

Forcepoint DLP Pros

Allows control over all your data with a single policy
Uses behavioral analytics and provides risk-adaptive protection and policy enforcement
Provides comprehensive data loss prevention features for cloud and in-house data

Forcepoint DLP Cons

New users might have problems locating the necessary features because of its complex interface
Doesn’t offer fingerprints for all databases
Doesn’t have optical character recognition (OCR)

Forcepoint DLP Pricing

Like other software in this article, Forcepoint DLP doesn’t have fixed subscription plans. Instead, you’ll need to request pricing based on your business needs. You can also request a free demo of the tool before purchasing it.

SolarWinds Access Rights Manager

SolarWinds Access Rights Manager is a 360-degree data loss prevention and user access management product that allows you to protect your data through efficient policy implementation and access controls.

It provides you the complete picture of how your organization’s data is being accessed, who owns and controls data transfer, what privileges users have when accessing data, and many other critical data management details.

SolarWinds makes data loss prevention easier by allowing you to create access role templates that you can assign to different users in your organization. This way, you don’t need to manage user access individually. Instead, you can make changes to the assigned roles and apply them to all the connected users.

SolarWinds DLP also has an alert mechanism that sends notifications to your IT team when a potential data breach or policy violation occurs. For example, your IT administrator will get an email alert when a user exceeds their access rights or when an unauthorized user accesses the data.

SolarWinds centralizes your DLP strategy with comprehensive reports on Active Directory, Windows file servers, SharePoint, group provisioning and management, and more. In addition, its data leakage prevention system makes audits faster and easier, providing essential data to support investigations and build forensic timelines.

SolarWinds Pros

Creates custom management and audit reports with one click
Helps companies comply with regulatory requirements, such as GDPR, PCI-DSS, and HIPAA
Lightweight tool that doesn’t drain system resources

SolarWinds Cons

Complex user interface can be difficult to understand
Has a steep learning curve and limited help resources

SolarWinds Pricing

The pricing for SolarWinds Access Rights Manager (ARM) is available on request. It also offers a 30-day free trial for Windows.

Check Point DLP

Check Point Data Loss Prevention (DLP) is a globally recognized data security solution designed to help teams comply with complex privacy regulations and minimize unauthorized information access.

It comes with a range of features to prevent data leakage and accidental data transfers to unauthorized users through a series of system checks and balances.

It secures your data through end-to-end encryption and gives you complete control over user access rights. You can create and define various roles for your business users and assign relevant rights from an easily accessible interface.

Check Point DLP allows you to track data usage across the web, email, and file sharing. In addition, its alert system warns the user when there’s a potential for any security breaches and shares the alert with the IT system administrator. This helps educate the end-users about data handling and alerts the relevant administrator to prevent data loss.

Check Point DLP Pros

A robust DLP solution with an intuitive user interface designed with business users in mind
Runs in the background without disturbing day-to-day operations
Highly responsive customer support

Check Point DLP Cons

Price may be too high for most small-medium businesses
Steep learning curve when first using

Check Point DLP Pricing

Pricing is available on request based on your business needs, and you can request a demo or view the buyer’s guide on their website.

How to Pick Your Best Data Loss Prevention Software

Now that we’ve reviewed different data loss prevention software, let’s discuss the steps you should follow and considerations to make when choosing the right option for your business.

Step 1: Determine If You Need Data Loss Prevention Software

The first thing to decide is whether you even need data loss prevention software for your business. I say this because deploying a DLP is a significant investment and only makes sense when there’s an obvious threat to your data that cannot be handled through other cheaper options. Businesses should typically invest in a DLP if they:

Handle excessive data over the internet
Manage private, sensitive, or confidential data
Have a large or distributed workforce
Need to comply with data management and privacy regulations

Step 2: Outline The Key Features You Need

Once you decide that your business needs a DLP, carefully identify your requirements and list the features you need. You can do this by hiring a consultant or asking your in-house data management experts what the business requires.

It’s essential to have this list because most DLP software offers customized subscription plans designed for the specific needs of a business. If you end up naming unnecessary features, you’ll be charged for them even if you never use them.

Step 3: Have An Approximate Budget

DLP software can cost anywhere from a few hundred to several thousand dollars. This is why you need to have an approximate budget before you start exploring the options in the market.

If you’re unsure about software pricing, reach out to some of the options listed in this article to get an estimate and use that as a starting point for determining your budget.

Step 4: Evaluate Products Through Demos

Nearly all the DLP tools in this article offer free demos on request. Make sure you and your IT administrators review them and play around with the options to see if they meet your business requirements.

Step 5: Implement Your Choice & Train Your Team

After evaluating the various software options and testing their features, it’s time to make your final choice. Reach out to the sales team, discuss your specific business needs, and ask them to recommend a tailored solution. Once it is deployed, ensure that your staff is adequately trained to use it.

Ideally, you should update your workforce on any new compliance regulations or data handling procedures resulting from deploying DLP software.