As data security concerns grow and regulations continue to increase, more and more companies are turning to data loss prevention (DLP) software solutions to help secure their information assets. While DLP software can provide insights on potential data loss problems concerning intellectual property and personally identifiable information (PII) living on company servers, it has concerning shortcomings that leave companies vulnerable to risky and costly problems.

Because DLP software solutions cannot identify information that resides anywhere outside the servers, when companies rely on them as their exclusive safeguard, sensitive information on external storage devices, hard copy information, and other unstructured data is left undetected and exposed. In order to be fully protected and ensure full compliance, companies need to start with an understanding of what types and in what locations their information exists, and they must have in place solid information management controls before making DLP software a component of their information security strategy.