Personally identifiable information still remains the type of data most commonly involved in breaches (43%), according to a Kaspersky study[1]. Up to 15% of files stored in cloud services, such as SharePoint or Teams, which contain sensitive data, turn out to be shared with someone outside of the company’s staff circle[2]. IT and IT security teams need to know if this risk arises to minimize the likelihood of this information getting into the wrong hands and ensure that the business follows data protection regulations.

The new Data Discovery capability in the updated Kaspersky Endpoint Security Cloud provides visibility over this cloud data[3]. It gives IT managers a list of the files that are stored anywhere in Microsoft cloud applications – including SharePoint Online, OneDrive and Teams – and contain any item of PII or bank card data. This includes data such as driving licenses, identity cards, passports, residence permits, social security, and taxpayer information. The product ensures 100% detection rate of PII regardless of the structure, delimiters they are written with and file extensions, as confirmed though a recent AV-TEST study[4] using German data.

The product scans all files with dedicated heuristics as soon as they are added to any of the applications. Analysis is carried out in the customer’s Microsoft 365 cloud tenant, so no documents or data leave the customer’s environment. IT managers can receive a list of documents which feature PII in reports and the detection list, as well as on the dashboard widgets in the management console. For each document, they can check the author, its location in Microsoft 365 applications, who has access to it internally or whether it is accessible from outside of the company. The administrator can then contact file owners asking them to improve access settings.