There is a lot to be said for preventing data loss at the point of use but if you are considering endpoint DLP (data loss prevention), I recommend against buying and deploying an integrated DLP/Anti-virus end-point security agent. This is for 4 reasons:
- Bloatware/system resource consumption – if you’re concerned with anti-virus system resource usage, imagine layering another 100MB of software, another 20MB of data security rules and loads of network traffic for management just for the luxury of getting a good deal from Symantec on a piece of integrated software that IT doesn’t know how to manage anyhow.
- Software vulnerabilities – if you have issues with the anti-virus – you don’t want them affecting your data flows via the DLP agent. Imagine a user uninstalling the anti-virus and impacting the DLP agent.
- Diversity – the strong anti-virus products have weak DLP agents – which means that the advantage of a single management platform is spurious. Having strong anti-virus software on your Windows PCs from a vendor like McAfee complements having strong data loss prevention from a company like Verdasys.
- Not a good fit for the organization – IT manage the Anti-virus, Security manage the data security and never the twain shall meet.