In today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape, organisations are increasingly turning to Data Leakage Prevention (DLP) and Insider Risk platforms to protect their sensitive information. However, a critical flaw in many of these systems is that they are designed by technologists who lack a deep understanding of business risk and people. This disconnect leads to flashy dashboards filled with metrics that, while visually impressive, are largely non-actionable and often irrelevant. Worse yet, these platforms tend to focus disproportionately on detecting malicious activity, even though most unsanctioned data leakage is the result of inadvertent actions, driven by a lack of awareness or the pressure to get the job done.
The Real-World Challenges
Many organisations using traditional DLP and Insider Risk platforms encounter several common issues that severely hinder their effectiveness:
- Huge Volumes of Alerts: Organisations are inundated with an overwhelming number of alerts, many of which are false positives.
- Alert Volumes Never Reduce: Over time, the volume of alerts does not decrease, leading to alert fatigue among analysts.
- Analyst Alert Fatigue: The sheer volume of alerts quickly wears analysts down, reducing their ability to respond effectively.
- Detection Rules Descoped: Detection rules often need to be descoped shortly after implementation because the number of alerts is impractical to manage.
- All Alerts Ignored: Eventually, the constant barrage of alerts leads to many of them being ignored entirely.
- Only Broad-Brush Rule Changes Available: The platforms typically allow only broad, sweeping rule changes, which lack the nuance needed for effective risk management.
- No Understanding of the Business: These platforms often fail to incorporate a deep understanding of the business, leading to irrelevant or inappropriate alerting.
- No Incorporation of Intelligence from the Business: Critical business knowledge that could inform and refine detection is frequently left out.
A Different Approach: ShadowSight
ShadowSight takes a different approach. It is a Microsoft 365 security intelligence platform designed around both the technical and the business sides of risk, and around the fact that most risky activity is not malicious.
Key Features and Capabilities
Alert Management:
- Validated Alerts Only: Every alert is validated by analysts before it reaches you, whether those analysts are ShadowSight’s, your own team, or both. Your people see what genuinely needs attention, not the noise.
- Your Choice of Who Runs It: ShadowSight can be managed by ShadowSight’s analysts, by your own team, or by a mix of both, so you aren’t dependent on costly professional services or a large internal team.
- Around-the-Clock Cover Where Needed: 24/7 alert validation is available for clients who want it.
Detection Features:
- Behavioural Detection: ShadowSight Data Leakage Prevention adds a behavioural detection layer on top of Microsoft 365 activity. It looks at how data moves, not just at keywords or labels.
- Catching What Rules Miss: It is built to catch insider data loss that looks like ordinary, legitimate work and that native Microsoft 365 DLP rules miss, such as data moving to personal email or AI tools.
Fixing the Root Causes:
- Know Where Sensitive Data Lives: ShadowSight Data Risk discovers and classifies sensitive data across SharePoint (including Teams files), OneDrive, Exchange email and Windows file servers.
- See Who Can Reach It: It shows who has access to that data, and where Microsoft Purview labels don’t match what’s actually stored.
- Act on Evidence: It recommends whether to delete, archive, migrate or remediate, with the evidence behind each recommendation. It is read-only, so it changes nothing on its own.
Implementation and Data Sovereignty:
- Rapid Implementation: One read-only Microsoft 365 admin consent, with no endpoint agents (only a lightweight collector if you include Windows file shares).
- Content Analysed in Place: Your content is analysed where it lives.
- Data Sovereignty: Customer data is stored in the Azure region where the customer’s business is located, and AI analysis uses Azure OpenAI in that same region.
- Proof of Value: You can see what ShadowSight finds on your own Microsoft 365 tenant before committing.
Culture and Fairness:
- Not Surveillance: The aim is visibility into how sensitive data moves, not watching people. Included WorkPulse insights use Microsoft 365 activity metadata only, never message content, keystrokes or screens.
- Culture Change: Because most undesirable activity is inadvertent, timely and specific guidance tends to change behaviour far more than an annual training module. Fixing systemic issues, such as oversharing of sensitive data, removes whole classes of risk at once.
Compliance:
- Knowing where your sensitive data is, who can reach it and how it moves, and keeping your data in your own region, helps you demonstrate the controls expected under regulations such as the Privacy Act 1988 (Australia) and GDPR.
In Summary
In a world where many DLP and Insider Risk platforms fail to deliver actionable insights and instead burden organisations with unnecessary alerts, ShadowSight offers an alternative. By addressing the root causes of data leakage, focusing on real-world behaviour rather than just malicious activity, and validating every alert before it reaches you, ShadowSight is built around the business as well as the technology. For organisations that want to improve their security posture without drowning in irrelevant alerts, ask us about a Proof of Value on your own Microsoft 365 tenant.