How to Discover and Protect Data at Scale

Protecting intellectual property (IP) requires more than NDAs and good intentions. This is especially true for a class of IP known as trade secrets — the high‑value, non‑public assets like source code, formulas, strategic plans, and customer lists that give a company its competitive edge. These assets only retain legal protection when a company can demonstrate that it has actively safeguarded them.  

Securing this critical information starts with knowing what is sensitive, where it lives, and who can access it. Most organizations struggle here, not because they don’t care, but because their critical data is scattered across cloud data stores, collaboration apps, hybrid environments, and years and years of accumulated data. This is where a one‑size‑fits‑all approach fails. Protecting IP at scale requires the right classification tools for the right types of data, all working together. 

That’s where the Varonis Data Security Platform comes in.  

Data classification fundamentals 

Different types of IP and sensitive data require different classification approaches. Just as you wouldn’t use a hammer to drive a screw, you shouldn’t use a single classification method for every data type. A scalable approach combines the best of multiple worlds:  

• Pattern-Based Classification: Pattern-based classification is king for structured data types like credit card numbers or healthcare identifiers. Techniques like proximity matching, negative keywords, and algorithmic verification (e.g., Luhn for credit cards) deliver high precision at low compute cost.  
• Exact Data Match (EDM): When record-level certainty is required (e.g., this is patient ID 22814 from our master EMR system), EDM is indispensable. It compares unstructured data to a hashed reference set, driving near-zero false positives and verifying critical data with precision.  
• AI/LLM-Assisted Classification: AI shines when there is ambiguity. It is a powerful tool for categorizing novel data types, interpreting inconsistent schemas, or adding context to classification results. Layered with pattern logic, AI raises overall precision and actionability, especially for ambiguous or evolving data.  

It’s important to use the fastest, most accurate method first (patterns), bring in EDM for absolute certainty, and layer on AI for deep contextual understanding.  

Speed, scale, and flexibility 

Modern data environments shift constantly, so classification needs an approach built for continuous change.  

Complete and current scanning 

It’s important to scan all of your data. Sampling or representative scanning will leave gaps in your security strategy and, ultimately, put your data at risk. Data discovery and classification must provide a complete, continuously updated, contextual view of your data that scales.  

Varonis scans the entire environment to classify data across cloud, SaaS, and hybrid environments. Incremental scanning ensures that the view of the data estate is current. 

Instead of checking every resource’s modification date to determine whether it needs to be rescanned, Varonis works from a known list of changed objects provided by our powerful auditing capabilities. This is far more efficient than the standard approach of crawling the entire file system each day and more secure than relying on sampling to compensate for an inability to classify data at scale.  

Turning classification into action 

With the results of the included classifications and priorities report, your security team gets a clear, risk‑based view of where confidential data lives, prioritized by risk and exposure.  

Ideally, this data will be found in folders with appropriate permissions — only C-level executives, the legal department, or the CFO’s office. In reality, IP often drifts into areas of your file server with less restrictive permissions.  

Very likely some of the IP has accidentally jumped over the wall and become overexposed due to less restrictive permissions. The root causes here can be entirely benign: executives are not aware they have created or copied confidential information. 

Understanding how IP leaked 

Through its comprehensive audit logging, Varonis makes it possible to trace how the data leaked. Varonis can tell your security teams exactly: 

•  Who created the file 
• When it was created 
• Who owns the data 
• What actions have been taken on the data 

This context helps teams understand the root cause and remediate effectively.  

Act on what matters 

Traditional DLP tools dump huge lists of sensitive documents and leave the rest up to you. Varonis takes a different approach. Varonis provides context around the data it classifies, telling you who is using it, who it belongs to, who should or shouldn’t have access, and where potential abuse is happening. Varonis then shows you what corrective actions to take and allows you to simulate and execute changes. 

The next generation of data classification with Varonis

True trade‑secret protection requires the right tools for the right types of data, working together at scale, enriched with context, and connected to automated remediation. 

Varonis brings these capabilities together into a unified approach: the right detection methods for the right kinds of sensitive data, paired with the context needed to understand how it’s being used, and the automation required to take action quickly. 

 Welcome to the next generation of data classification and loss prevention with Varonis.