Document Leakage Prevention with a Virtual Data Room

Cyber security is a vital element for financial health in the corporate sector. Although cybercriminals have no limitations, businesses can do their part in minimizing internal and external threats. One successful way to achieve maximum corporate data protection is to use secure channels like virtual data rooms.

Dataroom software technology is not new to the corporate world; the financial sector has been using it for over 15 years now. The best thing about using an electronic data room is that you can combat the latest cybersecurity threats. That’s because virtual data room providers keep introducing new technologies to tackle modern-day cyber security threats.

Here is a brief introduction to the virtual data rooms and a detailed guide on how they prevent document leakage.

What are virtual data rooms?

Virtual data rooms, also known as online data rooms or electronic data rooms, are highly secure digital document repositories for storing, sharing, organizing, and distributing corporate or private information. Virtual data room usage extends to almost every business sector and type. Corporations, organizations, retailers, nonprofits, SMEs, enterprises, and even government institutions employ virtual data room services.

Virtual data rooms not only simplify secure data sharing, but their built-in communication channels also allow businesses to keep their communication safer. That is why electronic data room software is a regular component of large-scale financial transactions like M&As, initial public offerings, fundraising, and real estate. 

In fact, due to growing demand, virtual data room providers like iDeals, Merrill, DealRoom, Intralinks, and Dropbox data room are providing customized services based on industry-specific needs. These include solutions designed specifically for M&A, due diligence, real estate deals, asset management, fundraising, litigation, life sciences, and many other use cases.

Since each of these transactions is data-heavy and deals with tons of sensitive information, it is crucial to ensure the safety of it.

How data rooms keep information secure

The application of multiple layers of security ensures maximum data protection. Here is how.

Platform security

The protection starts with platform security, which is also important to prevent unauthorized entries.

Two-factor authorization is a basic security feature in almost every standard virtual data room service. It is a two-step login process in which the user has to provide the correct password and a one-time generated code (valid for a short time) which is usually sent to the user’s email address or mobile phone.

Remote device purging is another amazing platform security feature. It allows the management to remove any device logged into the VDR and delete any documents browsed or downloaded from the data room.

Secure data sharing

You can protect your documents while sharing them in multiple ways. For example, the 256-bit SSL data encryption in modern-day virtual data rooms encrypts the file and the data in it. Only the sender and intended recipient can see the content in the file.

Similarly, the file tracking feature allows you to keep an eye on who is or has used that specific document. If you find any irregular activity on the document or believe it has fallen into the wrong hands, you can either revoke document access or even shred the document after the user has downloaded it.

Document access controls

Any high-end electronic data room software gives you the luxury of controlling document access. That said, you can create groups or different data rooms, add users to them, upload files, and restrict individual user access according to your needs. You can set different permission levels for every document.

For example, you can activate the view-only option; the users in the data room can only view the file. They cannot perform any other activity, such as printing, sharing, downloading, editing, annotating, or saving the file. Similarly, you can restrict users’ access to other groups or data rooms.

Document protection

In addition to controlling document access, you can use several other features for additional protection. A user can add digital watermarks, aka dynamic watermarks, in the documents for extended protection. Nobody can remove digital watermarks, thus nullifying any copyright claims. Also, digital watermarks track all actions performed (and by whom) on the file.

Fence View is another spectacular and advanced document protection feature. It makes sure that anyone who has access to the document cannot scan or take screenshots or pictures of the document pages. The fence view is more useful for external data sharing.

Activity tracking

It is easier to catch the black sheep in your organization with the help of a virtual data room. Although you can limit users from performing any activity on confidential data, you can also track the actions of users with high clearance levels in your VDR.

Audit logs or audit trails in the virtual data rooms provide full information on all VDR activities. The audit log includes details related to documents accessed, opened, shared, etc. You can get details on users who performed those functions and at what time.

Final words

Virtual data rooms prevent data leakage by employing various security layers to its data protection system. Common protection measures include platform security, data sharing security, document access controls, document protection, and activity tracking.

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