Symantec DLP

Exact Data Matching (EDM) detects content by fingerprinting structured data sources, including databases, directory servers, or other structured data files.

Indexed Document Matching (IDM) applies fingerprinting methods to detect confidential data stored in unstructured data, including Microsoft Office documents; PDFs and binary files such as JPEGs, CAD designs, and multimedia files. IDM also detects “derived” content, such as text that has been copied from a source document to another file.

Vector Machine Learning (VML) protects intellectual property that has subtle characteristics that may be rare or difficult to describe, such as financial reports and source code. It detects this type of content by performing statistical analysis on unstructured data and comparing it to similar content or documents. Unlike other detection technologies, VML does not require you to locate, describe, or fingerprint the data you need to protect.

Described Content Matching (DCM) detects content by looking for matches on specific keywords, regular expressions or patterns, and file properties. Symantec DLP provides more than 30 data identifiers out-of-the-box, which are pre-defined algorithms that combine pattern matching with built-in intelligence to prevent false positives. For example, the “credit card number” data identifier detects 16-digit patterns and validates them with a “Luhn check”.

File type detection recognizes and detects more than 330 different file types such as email, graphics, and encapsulated formats. You can configure Symantec DLP to recognize virtually any custom file type, and it also allows you to extract content from specific file formats including encrypted formats using the Content Extraction API.