Data loss is a people problem

Zero-day attacks and unpatched vulnerabilities make a lot of headlines. But the results of our inaugural 2024 Data Loss Landscape report show that people are the root cause of most data loss incidents.

Drawing on a global survey of 600 security practitioners and data from the Proofpoint Information Protection platform, our report explores the current state of data loss protection (DLP) and looks toward what’s coming next. Here are a few highlights:

• Most survey participants reported at least one data loss incident, and half said their businesses were disrupted and they lost revenue.

• Over 70% identified “careless users” as a cause of their data loss. And fewer than 50% cited technical issues.

• As few as 1% of users are responsible for as much as 90% of DLP alerts, but 33% of users send around two misdirected emails each year.

• Generative AI alerts are already among the top five most-implemented rules on the Proofpoint Information Protection platform, despite this rule only becoming available this year.

• DLP might have started out as a response to regulation, but practitioners describe a shift in both focus and capabilities toward protecting broader categories of data.

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