Catch Data Leaks Before They Become Breaches

The scenario: A sales rep emails a spreadsheet to their personal Gmail. Inside: 10,000 customer credit card numbers. By the time you find out, it's been forwarded three times and posted to Pastebin.

The cost: $4.45M average breach (IBM, 2024). GDPR fine: up to €20M or 4% of revenue. PCI-DSS non-compliance: lose ability to process cards. Board wants answers.

The problem: Your users handle sensitive data daily — SSN, PHI, credit cards, trade secrets. Email, file uploads, social media posts — every channel is a potential leak. You can't inspect laptops after-the-fact; you need to stop data at the exit point, in real time.

SafeSquid DLP sits at your network perimeter, inspecting every byte before it leaves:

• Text Analyser scans uploads, emails, social posts for credit cards, SSN, PHI, keywords
• Image Analyser extracts text from screenshots (OCR), detects PII in photos
• Compliance Templates provide pre-built rules for PCI-DSS, HIPAA, GDPR
• Real-time enforcement: Block, log + alert, or quarantine for manager approval

Outcome: Data exfiltration attempts are caught before they become breaches. Compliance auditors get proof you're monitoring egress.

Before/After SafeSquid DLP

Scenario	Without DLP	With SafeSquid DLP
Rep emails customer list to personal Gmail	❌ No visibility, discovered in audit 6 months later	✅ Blocked — SSN pattern detected in attachment, manager notified, SIEM alert fired
Contractor uploads pricing spreadsheet to personal Dropbox	❌ Data exfiltrated, posted to competitor website	✅ Quarantined — "confidential" keyword detected, manager approval required before release
Engineer posts AWS credentials to public GitHub gist	❌ Credentials harvested in minutes, crypto miner deployed on EC2	✅ Blocked — API key pattern detected in POST body, SIEM alert, security review triggered
Finance team shares SSN spreadsheet on Slack (external workspace)	❌ Legal discovers it 8 months later during e-discovery	✅ Blocked — 9-digit SSN pattern detected, upload fails with "Policy Violation: PII Detected" message

How SafeSquid DLP Works

SafeSquid sits between your users and the internet, inspecting every byte before it leaves:

1. Text Analyzer Scans for Patterns

Scans uploads, emails, social posts, form submissions for:

• Credit card numbers: Visa, Mastercard, Amex (PCI-DSS compliance)
• Social Security Numbers: 9-digit SSN format (HIPAA, GDPR)
• Protected Health Information: Patient IDs, diagnosis codes, medical record numbers
• Keywords: "confidential," "internal only," "DO NOT SHARE," "proprietary"
• Custom patterns: Your proprietary data formats (internal employee IDs, product codes)

How it works: Regular expression (regex) matching against content. When a match is found, the configured action triggers (block, log, quarantine).

→ Configure Text Analyser

2. Image Analyzer Detects Visual Content

Inspects images in uploads and attachments:

• OCR text extraction: Finds SSN or credit cards in scanned documents, screenshots
• Facial recognition: Detects PII in employee photos (optional, requires AI model)
• Explicit content detection: Blocks NSFW uploads to corporate Slack, SharePoint

Use case: Employee screenshots customer data from internal CRM, uploads to personal cloud storage. Image Analyzer extracts text via OCR, detects SSN, blocks upload.

→ Configure Image Analyser

3. Compliance Templates Provide Pre-Built Rules

No need to write regex from scratch. SafeSquid includes templates for:

• PCI-DSS: Credit card data (Visa, Mastercard, Amex, Discover)
• HIPAA: PHI (patient IDs, medical record numbers)
• GDPR: PII (names + addresses + SSN/passport combos)
• Custom: Your organization's proprietary data patterns

How to use: Load template → Test with dummy data → Enable blocking.

→ Load Compliance Templates

4. Real-Time Enforcement

When SafeSquid detects sensitive data, you choose the action:

Block (recommended for high-risk data):

• Upload fails immediately
• User sees: "Policy Violation: PCI Data Detected. Contact IT Security."
• SIEM alert fired
• Manager notified

Log + Alert (for low-risk or testing):

• Upload proceeds, but logged
• SIEM gets alert for security review
• Useful during tuning phase (identify false positives)

Quarantine (for ambiguous cases):

• File held in quarantine
• Manager receives approval request with file preview
• Manager can release or permanently block
• Audit trail maintained

When to Use DLP

✅ Your industry requires it:
Healthcare (HIPAA), finance (PCI-DSS, SOX), government (ITAR, FedRAMP), retail (PCI-DSS)

✅ You handle customer PII:
Names, addresses, SSN, payment info, medical records, passport numbers

✅ You have trade secrets:
Source code, formulas, M&A documents, pricing strategies, customer lists

✅ Compliance audit coming:
Auditors want proof you're monitoring data egress. DLP logs export to SIEM for evidence.

✅ Recent breach or close call:
Board mandates "we need to prevent the next incident." DLP provides technical controls + audit trail.

When NOT to Use DLP (Alone)

⚠️ DLP is not endpoint protection:
If data is already on a USB drive, laptop, or personal phone, network DLP won't catch it. Combine with endpoint DLP (Microsoft Purview, Symantec DLP, Forcepoint).

⚠️ DLP is not encryption:
Data in transit to approved services (SharePoint, OneDrive, Salesforce) should still be encrypted. DLP blocks unapproved channels, not all channels.

⚠️ DLP creates false positives:
Credit card regex matches test data (4111111111111111 is a test Visa number). Don't enable hard blocking on day one. Start with log-only mode for 2 weeks, tune patterns, then enable blocking.

⚠️ DLP needs SSL inspection:
90% of uploads are over HTTPS. If SSL inspection is disabled, DLP can't see the payload — it's encrypted. Enable SSL inspection first.

How to Configure DLP

Step 1: Enable SSL Inspection (Required)

DLP can't inspect encrypted uploads without SSL inspection. 90% of web traffic is HTTPS.

Action: Enable SSL Inspection and deploy the Root CA to client devices.

Verification: Visit an HTTPS site and confirm the certificate is issued by SafeSquid-Root-CA (not the website's original cert).

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Step 2: Load Compliance Templates

Pre-built regex patterns for PCI-DSS, HIPAA, GDPR.

Action: Load Compliance Templates in the Text Analyser configuration.

What you'll get:

• Credit card patterns (Visa: ^4[0-9]{12}(?:[0-9]{3})?$, Mastercard, Amex)
• SSN pattern: ^(?!000|666)[0-8][0-9]{2}-(?!00)[0-9]{2}-(?!0000)[0-9]{4}$
• Custom keyword lists: "confidential," "proprietary," "internal only"

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Step 3: Configure Text Analyser

Enable content scanning in uploads, emails, form submissions.

Action: Configure Text Analyser

Settings to configure:

• Scan scope: Uploads, emails, POST bodies, social media posts
• Pattern matching: Enable compliance templates (PCI, HIPAA, GDPR)
• Action on match: Block, log + alert, or quarantine
• Exclusions: Whitelist approved file transfer services (e.g., SFTP to partner)

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Step 4: Link DLP to Access Restrictions

DLP detections must trigger enforcement actions (block, log, quarantine).

Action: Configure Access Restrictions with DLP profile matching.

Example rule:

• If: Text Analyser detects PCI data (credit card pattern)
• Then: Block upload + log to SIEM + notify manager
• Except: Allow if destination is approved payment processor (e.g., Stripe API)

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Step 5: Set Up SIEM Integration

Send DLP alerts to your SIEM (Splunk, QRadar, Wazuh) for security monitoring.

Action: Configure SIEM Integration with syslog forwarding.

What gets logged:

• Timestamp, user identity, source IP
• Detected pattern (e.g., "SSN detected in upload to gmail.com")
• Action taken (blocked, logged, quarantined)
• File hash (SHA256) for forensics

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Step 6: Test with Dummy Data

Don't enable blocking in production without testing. False positives will break workflows.

Action: Create test files with fake sensitive data:

• Fake SSN: 123-45-6789 (invalid SSN, but matches pattern)
• Test Visa card: 4111111111111111 (official test number, won't process)
• Keyword test: Text file with "CONFIDENTIAL - DO NOT SHARE"

Upload to personal Gmail, Dropbox, etc. Verify:

• ✅ SafeSquid blocks or logs the upload
• ✅ SIEM receives alert
• ✅ User sees policy violation message

Tune patterns to reduce false positives (e.g., exclude test credit card numbers).

Once tuning is complete, enable blocking for real data.

⚠️ Common Pitfalls

1. Enabling DLP without SSL inspection
What breaks: 90% of uploads are HTTPS. DLP can't inspect encrypted traffic.
Solution: Enable SSL Inspection first, deploy Root CA to clients, then enable DLP.

2. Blocking too aggressively on day one
What breaks: False positives block legitimate business workflows. Finance team can't email invoices (credit card-like numbers in invoice IDs).
Solution: Start with log-only mode for 2 weeks. Review SIEM alerts, tune regex patterns, whitelist false positives. Then enable blocking.

3. Forgetting compressed files
What breaks: User uploads customer_data.zip with 10,000 SSNs inside. DLP sees a ZIP file, not the contents.
Solution: Enable archive decompression in Content Modifier. SafeSquid will extract and scan ZIP/RAR contents before allowing upload.

4. Not whitelisting approved data channels
What breaks: You block all credit card uploads. But your payment team needs to upload transaction files to Stripe. Legitimate business stops.
Solution: Create exception rules in Access Restrictions: "Allow credit card uploads to stripe.com API endpoint only."

5. Ignoring image-based data leaks
What breaks: User screenshots customer SSN from CRM, uploads image to personal cloud. DLP only scans text, misses image uploads.
Solution: Enable Image Analyser with OCR to extract text from images.

Related Topics

Prerequisites:

• SSL Inspection — Required to inspect encrypted uploads (90% of traffic)
• Authentication — User identity needed for per-user DLP policies

Next Steps:

• Text Analyser Configuration — Fine-tune regex patterns
• Image Analyser (AI-powered) — OCR for screenshots
• Access Restrictions — Link DLP detections to block/log actions
• SIEM Integration — Forward DLP alerts to Splunk, QRadar, etc.

Troubleshooting:

• DLP False Positives — How to tune regex patterns, whitelist test data

Use Cases:

• Block Personal Gmail, Allow Corporate — Prevent data leaks via personal email
• Block Keywords in Uploads — Detect "confidential" in social posts

Uncontrolled data exfiltration drives regulatory fines (e.g. GDPR up to €20M, PCI-DSS loss of card processing), breach costs (average $4.45M), and reputational damage. SafeSquid DLP detects and blocks sensitive data (PII, PHI, payment card data) in real time at the network perimeter. DLP logs export to SIEM; violation reports are auditor-ready. Every block or alert includes timestamp, user, detected pattern, action taken, and file hash. Plan 1–2 weeks for deployment and tuning; then quarterly pattern review and SIEM alert monitoring.