Forcepoint DLP has helped Khaitan & Co plug all possible points of data loss, thus enabling security of internal and client data.

Overview

Founded in 1911, Khaitan & Co is one of India’s oldest and largest full service law firms. The firm offers legal solutions to both domestic and international clients across verticals, ranging from BFSI, government bodies, educational and charitable trusts, cultural institutions to high net worth individuals, and estates and trusts.

Challenge

Khaitan & Co is the appointed custodian of all its client data in digital format (e.g., contracts, bonds, stocks). As custodian, the firm faces the challenge of ensuring client data doesn’t find its way into unauthorized hands; its survival depends on the ability to protect this client data.

According to Shamik Kumar Ghosh, IT Manager for Khaitan & Co:

“Our clients trust us with their data, which is usually confidential in nature. We can’t afford to let this data out into the external world. Any breach can bring our clients’ reputations, and thus our own, crashing down.”
— Ghosh

With no security solution in place, the firm prioritized the need to gain visibility and control over its critical data; this visibility had not been yet established. As a result, the data flow within the organization, as well as email accounts from external third parties, couldn’t be effectively monitored and guarded. Unchecked and unauthorized USB/flash devices, printers and cloud applications also presented a major security risk.

“Internal users can be the biggest threat to data security and integrity. We didn’t have the means to determine which, if any, of our internal users were sending out client information over their personal email, copying confidential documents on to a USB drive, or leaving with printouts. Thus, there was always the risk of data loss.”
— Ghosh

Khaitan & Co began looking for a resolution of this issue. It needed a watertight solution that could help identify potential sources and points of data loss, and secure them effectively without interrupting normal business operations.

Solution

After a thorough evaluation of the market, the firm’s IT team shortlisted three vendors - McAfee, SonicWall and Forcepoint. It didn’t take long for management to review and decide on Forcepoint DLP as best suited to their requirements. Forcepoint DLP posted a higher score over its competitors, as it offered a better outflow capacity and could also monitor screen capturing on an offline system. Also, Forcepoint DLP is a lightweight application: it doesn’t slow down the system servers that are crucial to the firm’s business. What clinched the final decision in favor of Forcepoint was its favorable market reputation and efficient after sales service. The solution was then implemented by Forcepoint’s SI partner, IT Solutions India Pvt. Ltd., in approximately one month’s time.

Results

Forcepoint Solution › Forcepoint DLP has helped Khaitan & Co plug all possible points of data loss, thus enabling security of internal and client data. Forcepoint DLP ensures real-time protection, monitoring data fowing within the firm’s systems in real-time.

“With the DLP solution, we have been able to address the issue of insider threat, which is one of the key reasons behind data breaches in organizations. It has also helped us gain complete control of data residing with us.”
— Ghosh

In terms of tracking, the solution provides holistic protection, covering the gamut of media capture, storage and output devices, including emails, external storage devices (e.g., USB/flash drive, external hard disk drives), printers and cloud apps.

The system tips off the administrator when someone tries to access a classified site or database, or tries to send the database site to any unintended or unauthorized person. Even if a user attempts to print out the data, it tips off the server.

The Forcepoint solution is able to track users attempting to send unauthorized data to external email, whether from their official or personal email. Besides raising an alert, it also blocks communications to any external email and domain. Similarly, it also monitors any external storage media plugged into the system.

Hence, if there is an attempt at a security breach and someone tries to save any confidential data on external storage, the DLP solution raises an alarm (when the security risk level is low) and blocks the data from getting copied (when the security risk level is high). The security risk levels have been pre-defined by the firm’s IT team, as per their standards, and can be changed at any point in time.

The solution can also plug data loss to cloud apps. During an attempt to copy data to any cloud-based app (e.g. Dropbox, Google Drive), an alarm is raised on the central server and copying is disabled. This is a key feature considering the growing usage of cloud apps.