Data Loss Prevention – the essential data protection in modern organizations

Data Loss Prevention – the essential data protection in modern organizations

Data has become the main bargaining chip for cyberattackers, and recent statistics show the true size of the risk. The 2024 edition of the Proofpoint Data Loss Landscape highlights that almost no organization has escaped data loss or theft incidents, with an average of 15 incidents per company. The situation worsened last year, when data exfiltration was involved in 94% of cyberattacks globally (Tech Republic), with more and more ransomware campaigns combining information encryption with data theft.

At the same time, regulatory pressure is increasing. The DLA Piper GDPR Fines and Data Breach Survey shows that in 2024, record fines of €1.2 billion were imposed in Europe, bringing the total penalties applied since the launch of the GDPR (2018) to €5.88 billion. Big tech companies, such as Meta (with a record fine of €1.2 billion in 2023), remain preferred targets, but banks, energy suppliers and organizations in critical industries are increasingly being hit by attackers.

When data loss generates billions in penalties and associated costs, and a simple wrong click can trigger a chain of critical events, implementing advanced Data Loss Prevention/DLP solutions is no longer an option, but a necessity. The Proofpoint DLP solution, available through Safetech Innovations, gives organizations the ability to prevent data loss, theft, and exfiltration before they become news topics and sources of major financial loss.

Data theft in Romania. Relevant public incidents

Let’s remember that, in February 2025, a major telecom player in Romania was the target of a large-scale cyberattack: (https://economedia.ro/orange-victima-unei-brese-de-securitate-datele-unor-clienti-si-angajati-au-fost-publicate.html) a hacker accessed the company’s systems and stole 380,000 unique email addresses, internal documents, credit card details and sensitive information about employees, partners and contractors — in total 6.5 GB of data, including source code. The unauthorized access lasted over a month and later, the stolen data was published. According to the DNSC, the attack also affected government institutions, town halls, educational establishments, hospitals, banks, insurers, transport and energy companies.

Another highly publicized case took place at the end of last year – the City Hall of Sector 5 was also the victim of a cyberattack that stole personal data of over 200,000 citizens (https://www.digi24.ro/stiri/atacul-cibernetic-de-la-primaria-sectorului-5-date-a-sute-de-mii-de-cetateni-au-fost-scoase-la-vanzare-ce-au-mai-reusit-hackerii-2999823) – name, surname, parents’ names, addresses, CNPs, e-mails and telephone numbers. The attackers also had access to internal conversations between employees, fines imposed by the Local Police, patrol planning, platforms managed by the City Hall, but also to audio recordings of phone calls from the institution. The hackers demanded a ransom of $5 million, but the authorities refused to negotiate.

Also in 2024, the Chamber of Deputies (hackers stole 316 documents, even copies of parliamentarians’ identity documents), the Electrica Group, the website of the Suceava Local Police and the Mureș Hospital, the Timisoara City Hall, and the list goes on. The diversity of targets and industries targeted by hackers, from telecommunications and financial services to public administration and healthcare, underscores the urgent need for DLP solutions for advanced data protection.

Advanced protection with Proofpoint Data Loss Prevention

In 2024, Proofpoint was the only Data Loss Prevention solution provider to receive the “Customers’ Choice” distinction from Gartner® Peer Insights™, proving the superior level of user satisfaction and trust it enjoys compared to other similar solutions in the global market. By partnering with Proofpoint, Safetech Innovations brings to the local market the Proofpoint DLP solution, which provides unified protection at the email, cloud, web and endpoint levels.

Proofpoint Data Loss Prevention is a complete solution for data loss prevention by monitoring and protecting sensitive information across endpoints (even unmanaged), cloud applications (e.g., Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, Salesforce), and email communications. The solution combines advanced detection of sensitive content/data (including OCR for images and digital fingerprinting), dynamic risk-based policies, behavioral AI through the Nexus Relationship Graph, and automatic encryption. All managed from a unified console that allows triage of alerts, investigations and rapid response, with anonymization of user identification data. Additionally, it minimizes the risk of fines by ensuring compliance with strict regulations like GDPR.