Data leakage prevention (DLP) solution is a system that is designed to detect potential data breach / data ex-filtration transmissions and prevent them by monitoring, detecting and blocking sensitive data while in-use (endpoint actions), in-motion (network traffic), and at-rest (data storage).

In data leakage incidents, sensitive data is disclosed to unauthorised personnel either by malicious intent or inadvertent mistake. Such sensitive data can come in the form of private or company information, intellectual property (IP), financial or patient information, credit-card data, and other information depending on the business and the industry.

The terms “data loss” and “data leak” are closely related and are often used interchangeably, though they are somewhat different. Data loss incidents turn into data leak incidents in cases where media containing sensitive information is lost and subsequently acquired by unauthorised party. However, a data leak is possible without the data being lost in the originating side.