Pedigree: A New Paradigm for Data Leakage Prevention in Enterprises

Data Loss/Leakage Prevention (DLP) has risen to prominence in recent years due to an increase in the number of data breach incidents [1]—including a string of high-profile incidents [2,3]—and because of the potential for massive losses due to these ($6.75 million dollars per data breach incident [12]). To address data breaches, many major players in the information security market have DLP products for enterprise and corporate networks [4–7]. However, these solutions are chiefly based on the paradigm of content-based or content-aware DLP: preventing leaks of sensitive or confidential information by scanning data, whether “at rest” on end-user machines, or “in motion” in the network.