Confluence DLP

Detect & Redact Sensitive Confluence Pages - Confluence DLP (Data Loss Prevention)

Table of Contents

TL;DR:

Strac extends its Data Leak Prevention (DLP) capabilities to Confluence, protecting sensitive data on the platform.
Safeguarding sensitive data in Confluence is crucial for regulatory compliance and guarding against insider threats.
Effective access controls, mitigating insider threats, and ensuring regulatory compliance are key reasons to safeguard Confluence.
Strac's Confluence DLP solution offers sensitive content detection and protection, customizable data protection strategies, and comprehensive audit trails.
Strac's solution is essential for secure and efficient collaboration, protecting against data breaches and supporting compliance with regulatory standards.

Confluence, created by Atlassian, is a widely adopted content collaboration tool that empowers teams to create, share, and manage content in one place. Its extensive use across various industries makes it a vital platform for documentation, project planning, and team collaboration. Recognizing the importance of data security within Confluence pages, Strac has extended its Data Leak Prevention (DLP) capabilities to this platform.

Strac Confluence DLP (Data Leak Prevention) efficiently identifies and secures sensitive content embedded within Confluence pages and attachments, ensuring their confidentiality. This initiative is crucial for maintaining regulatory compliance and guarding against insider threats.

Safeguarding Sensitive Data and the Challenges it Poses in Confluence with DLP

Confluence, as a centralized platform for content creation, sharing, and collaboration, plays a critical role in enabling teams to streamline their documentation processes, foster collaboration, and produce high-quality outcomes. Protecting your Confluence workspace becomes paramount given the platform's capabilities for sharing and distributing information widely among team members and external stakeholders. Here are key reasons why safeguarding your Confluence environment is essential:

Implementing Effective Access Controls in Confluence for Sensitive Information Protection: As a hub for documentation and collaboration, Confluence is pivotal in the sharing and management of information among diverse groups within and outside an organization. It is vital to implement robust and detailed access controls to secure sensitive information contained within pages and attachments. Such measures ensure that only authorized individuals can view or edit sensitive content, thus protecting against unauthorized access.
Mitigating Insider Threats in Confluence: Recognizing that data breaches can occur not just from external attacks but also from within, by trusted employees either inadvertently or deliberately, underscores the importance of Data Loss Prevention (DLP) strategies in Confluence. DLP tools are essential for securing collaborative spaces by preventing the exposure of sensitive data. They allow organizations to oversee and control how data is shared and who has access to it, significantly reducing the risk of internal data leaks.
Ensuring Regulatory Compliance in Confluence: For industries governed by stringent data protection laws, such as the European Union’s GDPR for personal data and the U.S.'s HIPAA for health information, compliance is non-negotiable. The deployment of a comprehensive Data Loss Prevention (DLP) framework in Confluence is critical for meeting these legal requirements. DLP strategies help in identifying, monitoring, and protecting sensitive information, ensuring that an organization's use of Confluence complies with relevant data protection standards and regulations.

In summary, safeguarding sensitive data within Confluence is not just about protecting an organization’s proprietary information—it's also about ensuring operational integrity, maintaining trust with clients and stakeholders, and complying with legal obligations. Implementing effective DLP measures in Confluence addresses these challenges by providing the tools necessary for secure content management and collaboration, thus enabling organizations to leverage the full potential of Confluence safely and efficiently.

Achieving Compliance and Safeguarding Sensitive Data in Confluence with DLP: How Strac Can Help

Sensitive Content Detection and Protection: Strac’s Confluence DLP solution scans pages and attachments for sensitive information, such as Personally Identifiable Information (PII), Protected Health Information (PHI), and financial details. Once detected, Strac ensures that these sensitive elements are either redacted or securely hidden, preventing unauthorized access while allowing authorized users to view the content through a secure Strac interface.
Customizable Data Protection Strategies: Organizations can tailor the DLP settings to their specific needs by specifying which types of sensitive data to detect and how to remediate them. Strac offers remediation techniques like Redaction, Masking, Alerting, Encryption. Strac's redaction experience is unique where it removes the original data from Confluence pages and replaces it with a link to Strac Vault. This flexibility supports compliance with various data protection standards, such as GDPR and HIPAA, by ensuring that only pertinent data is shielded.
Comprehensive Audit Trails for Enhanced Accountability: Strac provides detailed audit reports that track who accessed or attempted to access sensitive content. This feature is invaluable for compliance, risk, and security officers monitoring data access and ensuring that data protection policies are adhered to.

In summary, Strac’s Confluence DLP solution is an essential tool for any organization using Confluence for collaboration and content management. By safeguarding sensitive information, Strac not only protects against data breaches but also supports compliance with regulatory standards, making it an indispensable asset for secure and efficient collaboration.

Sensitive Data Types for Confluence DLP

Explore the range of sensitive data items autonomously identified and safeguarded by Strac by visiting our platform. Additional information can be found in our catalog of sensitive data elements.data elements.

Sharepoint DLP Use Cases

Practical Scenario

A hospital’s billing and administrative teams use SharePoint Online to store patient invoices, medical reports, and insurance forms. While collaborating with external insurance providers, a staff member accidentally updates the permissions on a SharePoint document library to “Anyone with the link,” exposing potentially thousands of patient files containing PHI.

How Strac's Sharepoint DLP Helps

Continuous Data Discovery: Strac automatically scans existing and newly uploaded documents, identifying PHI (e.g., medical record numbers, Social Security Numbers).
Classification & Labeling: Once identified, files are labeled (e.g., “HIPAA Sensitive”), ensuring that administrators know which documents require the highest level of protection.
Visibility into Access: Strac provides real-time insight into who has access to these sensitive documents. Administrators can instantly see if unauthorized users or broad groups have viewing rights.
Revoke Public Links: If a file is publicly accessible, Strac immediately revokes those links and restores restricted access.
Alerts & Quarantines: When someone attempts to share PHI externally, Strac can alert admins, quarantine the file for review, or completely block the action.
Audit-Ready Reports: All actions are logged, enabling quick incident response and demonstrating HIPAA compliance for audits.

Practical Scenario

A mid-sized investment firm uses SharePoint to collaborate on various client files, including:

Credit card statements (subject to PCI-DSS)
ID documents (Driver’s Licenses, Passports, etc.) used for KYC (Know Your Customer) verification
Banking information such as account and routing numbers

An associate accidentally shares a SharePoint folder containing these files with a newly onboarded client who does not require access to all confidential documents. This folder is also accessible to several internal teams outside the immediate project, creating multiple potential exposure points.

How Strac's Sharepoint DLP Helps

Comprehensive Data Discovery: Strac scans both existing and newly uploaded documents in SharePoint for sensitive information such as credit card numbers, bank account details, and ID documents (Driver’s License, Passport formats).
Classification & Automated Labeling: Once identified, Strac applies meaningful labels (e.g., “PCI-DSS Sensitive,” “PII – ID Documents,” “Banking Info”) to ensure these files stand out and are subject to stricter security rules.
Visibility into Access: Strac provides an immediate view of who currently has access to these sensitive files. This allows admins to spot situations where external clients or internal teams unnecessarily have permissions.
Public Access Revocation: If a labeled document (e.g., containing card data or ID scans) is found to be publicly shared or too broadly accessible, Strac automatically revokes these links or permissions, aligning access with the principle of least privilege.
Alerts, Quarantines, and Blocks: When a user attempts to share a labeled document with outside domains—or with an entire department—Strac alerts administrators or quarantines/blocks the file share, depending on policy settings.
In cases where the share is intentional but needs review, admins can approve or deny the request within Strac’s dashboard.
Audit & Compliance: Every sharing event, label assignment, and access revocation is logged, creating a detailed audit trail. This helps demonstrate compliance with PCI-DSS, KYC, AML, and other regulatory requirements.
Automatic reporting simplifies any regulatory or internal compliance audit, reducing the administrative burden on security and compliance teams.

Practical Scenario

A software company keeps source code, product roadmaps, and design specs in SharePoint. Several teams—including external contractors—use the same SharePoint site. A developer accidentally grants a large group, including some non-disclosure–exempt contractors, access to a folder containing patent-pending code.

How Strac's Sharepoint DLP Helps

Holistic File Scanning: Strac inspects documents, PDFs, and archives for code snippets, system designs, and proprietary business terms to detect potential IP.
Intelligent Labeling: Documents identified as containing IP or trade secrets are automatically classified (e.g., “Proprietary IP”), reinforcing the need for restricted sharing.
Real-Time Access Insights: With Strac, administrators can instantly see who has access to IP-tagged files, enabling them to remove unauthorized users or reduce permission scopes.
Immediate Link Removal: If a contractor or external partner is mistakenly granted access to IP, Strac revokes public or unauthorized sharing before the files can be downloaded.
Alerts & Blocking: Strac’s policies can be configured to alert security teams or block external sharing attempts for files containing proprietary content.
Incident Response & Auditing: Detailed logs of every share request, label change, and access revocation aid in quick incident resolution and help prove due diligence if legal issues arise.