Glossary / DLP (Data Loss Prevention)
DLP (Data Loss Prevention)
Tools and policies that detect and block sensitive data — PII, financial records, intellectual property — from leaving an organization's control through email, file upload, USB, or other channels.
A DLP system inspects content in motion — an outbound email, a file upload to a cloud service, a document copied to removable media — against defined patterns (a Social Security number format, a customer-record structure, a specific keyword list) and either blocks, warns, or just logs the attempt depending on how the policy is tuned.
The practical challenge is almost never detection accuracy in isolation — it's false positives. A DLP policy tuned too aggressively blocks legitimate work constantly, which trains employees to find workarounds, while one tuned too loosely misses the exact leak it exists to catch; getting the balance right takes ongoing tuning, not a one-time setup.
Most organizations below enterprise scale don't run a dedicated DLP product — they lean on the DLP features already built into Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, applied to email and file sharing specifically, which covers a meaningful share of the actual risk without adding a separate tool to the stack.
How Nexus handles this
Nexus doesn't run its own DLP scanning engine — its compliance module tracks data-handling controls (access control, encryption, vendor oversight) as implemented, partial, or planned per client, and the credential vault closes off one of the more common leak paths directly: a shared document full of the credentials it's meant to replace.
More terms
MSP (Managed Service Provider)
A company that remotely manages a client's IT infrastructure and end-user systems on an ongoing, proactive basis — usually a flat-fee contract, not break-fix billing.
RMM (Remote Monitoring and Management)
Software that lets an MSP monitor device health and perform remote management tasks — patching, scripting, remote control — across every client site from one console.
PSA (Professional Services Automation)
Software that runs the business side of MSP operations — ticketing, SLAs, billing, contracts, and client records — the system of record most MSP work flows through.
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