Enhancing Data Protection with Microsoft Purview DLP for ZIP Files

Data security is a top priority for organizations managing sensitive information. While protecting data in common formats like Word, Excel, and PDF files is essential, organizations must also safeguard compressed file formats like ZIP files. ZIP files often contain multiple documents, including sensitive data, which makes them a significant risk vector if left unprotected.

With Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention (DLP) capabilities, organizations can apply policies to detect, monitor, and protect sensitive information within ZIP files. This blog explores how Purview DLP works for ZIP files, its benefits, and how to configure it effectively.

Understanding Microsoft Purview DLP for ZIP Files

Purview DLP capabilities extend beyond individual files to include compressed file formats, such as ZIP, RAR, and 7z. The platform uses advanced content inspection techniques to analyze the contents of compressed files, ensuring that sensitive data remains secure, even when stored or shared in this format.

With DLP for ZIP files, you can:

1. Detect sensitive data within compressed files.
2. Prevent unauthorized sharing or uploading of ZIP files containing sensitive information.
3. Enforce encryption or password protection on ZIP files before they are shared.

Key Features of DLP for ZIP Files

1. Deep Content Inspection:
   • Microsoft Purview can analyze the contents of ZIP files to identify sensitive data, such as credit card numbers, Social Security numbers, or proprietary business information.
   • The inspection supports nested ZIP files, ensuring security even for multi-layered compression.
2. Policy Enforcement Across Locations:
   • Apply DLP policies to ZIP files accessed, shared, or downloaded via email, cloud storage (e.g., OneDrive, SharePoint), or endpoints.
   • Block or restrict sharing of ZIP files that violate DLP policies.
3. Real-Time Alerts and Notifications:
   • Notify users when sensitive data within a ZIP file triggers a DLP policy.
   • Provide detailed guidance on how to comply with organizational data protection requirements.
4. Integration with Sensitivity Labels:
   • Detect and enforce policies based on sensitivity labels applied to files inside the ZIP archive.
   • Automatically apply sensitivity labels to ZIP files containing labeled content.

Benefits of Using Purview DLP for ZIP Files

1. Comprehensive Protection:
   • Extends DLP coverage to an often-overlooked file format, reducing the risk of data breaches.
2. Policy Consistency:
   • Applies the same data protection rules to ZIP files as other formats, ensuring uniform compliance across your data estate.
3. Simplified Compliance:
   • Helps organizations meet regulatory requirements, such as GDPR, HIPAA, or CCPA, by protecting sensitive data within compressed files.
4. User Awareness:
   • Promotes a culture of data security through proactive alerts and user education during policy violations.

Use Cases for ZIP File DLP

1. Preventing Data Exfiltration

An employee tries to compress sensitive documents into a ZIP file and upload it to an unapproved cloud storage service. Purview DLP detects the sensitive content and blocks the upload, preventing data exfiltration.

2. Securing Collaboration with Third Parties

When sharing ZIP files with external vendors or partners, DLP policies enforce encryption and password protection, ensuring that sensitive data inside the ZIP remains secure.

3. Detecting Unstructured Sensitive Data

ZIP files often contain a mix of structured (e.g., spreadsheets) and unstructured data (e.g., scanned PDFs). Purview DLP\u2019s content inspection identifies sensitive information, regardless of file type, within the ZIP archive.

How to Configure DLP Policies for ZIP Files

1. Enable Content Inspection for Compressed Files(Edit DLP rule)

2. Define Rules for Sensitive Data

• Use predefined sensitive information types (e.g., PII, financial data) or create custom types.
• Specify the conditions for triggering the policy, such as detecting sensitive data within a ZIP file.

3. Set Actions and Alerts

• Configure actions like blocking the file, notifying the user, or applying encryption.
• Set up alerts for administrators to monitor policy violations.

4. Test the Policy in Audit Mode

• Run the policy in audit mode to analyze its impact and identify false positives.
• Review policy matches in the Activity Explorer to refine the configuration.

5. Enforce the Policy

• Once satisfied with the results in audit mode, enforce the policy for all users.

Best Practices for ZIP File DLP

1. Educate Users: Train employees on how to securely handle ZIP files and avoid triggering policy violations.
2. Monitor Regularly: Use the Activity Explorer to review policy matches and refine your DLP rules as needed.
3. Leverage Sensitivity Labels: Encourage users to apply sensitivity labels to individual files before archiving them in ZIP files.
4. Audit Nested ZIP Files: Ensure policies cover multiple layers of compression to protect deeply nested sensitive data.

About CloudThat

CloudThat is a leading provider of Cloud Training and Consulting services with a global presence in India, the USA, Asia, Europe, and Africa. Specializing in AWS, Microsoft Azure, GCP, VMware, Databricks, and more, the company serves mid-market and enterprise clients, offering comprehensive expertise in Cloud Migration, Data Platforms, DevOps, IoT, AI/ML, and more.

CloudThat is the first Indian Company to win the prestigious Microsoft Partner 2024 Award and is recognized as a top-tier partner with AWS and Microsoft, including the prestigious ‘Think Big’ partner award from AWS and the Microsoft Superstars FY 2023 award in Asia & India. Having trained 650k+ professionals in 500+ cloud certifications and completed 300+ consulting projects globally, CloudThat is an official AWS Advanced Consulting Partner, Microsoft Gold Partner, AWS Training Partner, AWS Migration Partner, AWS Data and Analytics Partner, AWS DevOps Competency Partner, AWS GenAI Competency Partner, Amazon QuickSight Service Delivery Partner, Amazon EKS Service Delivery Partner,  AWS Microsoft Workload Partners, Amazon EC2 Service Delivery Partner, Amazon ECS Service Delivery Partner, AWS Glue Service Delivery Partner, Amazon Redshift Service Delivery Partner, AWS Control Tower Service Delivery Partner, AWS WAF Service Delivery Partner, Amazon CloudFront, Amazon OpenSearch, AWS DMS, AWS Systems Manager, Amazon RDS, and many more.