WorkDrive DLP: Secure your confidential business data

Let’s face it—keeping your company’s data safe is harder than ever. As teams collaborate, share files, and access content from multiple devices and locations, there’s a lot of room for things to slip through the cracks. We know protecting sensitive information is not just an IT priority—it's a strategic necessity.

That’s why we are introducing Data Loss Prevention (DLP) in WorkDrive—helping you protect critical information, enforce compliance, and maintain control over data without slowing down productivity.

What is Data Loss Prevention (DLP)?

Data Loss Prevention (DLP) is a security strategy used to protect sensitive information from being accessed, shared, or leaked without authorization. It involves monitoring and controlling how data is used, stored, and transferred—whether within a network, on devices, or through communication channels.

DLP tools can detect patterns like credit card numbers, personal identifiers, or proprietary content, and automatically enforce policies to block or restrict actions that might compromise data security. This helps organizations prevent accidental leaks, insider threats, and compliance violations with regulations such as GDPR, HIPAA, or PCI DSS.

DLP in WorkDrive

Ever wondered what happens to your company’s data once it’s shared, downloaded, or sent outside your organization? Are you confident it’s fully protected? With Data Loss Prevention (DLP) in Zoho WorkDrive, you can automatically or manually detect and safeguard sensitive information to protect your content from unauthorized access or accidental exposure.

Only team admins and super admins can configure and manage these policies (from the Admin Console), which maintains centralized control over your organization’s data security. Ultimately, you can be confident that critical data stays within trusted boundaries and is only accessible to the right people under the right conditions with DLP in WorkDrive.

How does it work?

Zoho WorkDrive offers two types of data classification options to help secure sensitive information: Automatic classification and Manual classification. Both methods help ensure sensitive data remains secure by giving organizations greater control over their content management policies.

Automatic classification (via DLP policy)

These are preconfigured rules that Zoho WorkDrive can enforce to detect sensitive data and automatically prevent it from being exposed or misused. The system continuously scans files and folders for content that matches predefined criteria—such as credit card numbers, personally identifiable information (PII), or confidential business documents.

When a match is detected, the policy is triggered without user intervention and takes predefined actions like restricting access, notifying administrators, or quarantining the file. This type of policy is ideal for ensuring compliance and minimizing human error.

Learn how to configure automatic classification in WorkDrive

Note: While automatic classification improves security, it may not be 100% accurate. Manual classification offers additional control.

Manual classification (via Classification Labels)

These allow administrators to create custom rules based on their specific organizational needs. Instead of relying solely on automated detection, manual policies give teams more granular control over what constitutes sensitive data and how it should be handled.

Admins can define the conditions, choose the files or folders to monitor, and determine the actions to take when a violation occurs. Manual policies are particularly useful in industries with unique compliance requirements or data classifications that aren't covered by standard automatic rules.

Learn how to configure a classification label in WorkDrive

Together, these two types of DLP classification enable organizations to safeguard their data more effectively by combining proactive automation with customizable oversight.  

How does it operate within an organization, such as a bank?

Banks manage confidential data like account numbers, Social Security numbers, and financial statements. With DLP in WorkDrive, the bank can:

• Classify documents stored in WorkDrive manually or run them through automatic checks to mark them as confidential.

• Automatically detect and restrict the sharing of sensitive data outside the bank.

• Prevent unauthorized downloads or printing of confidential documents.

Country-specific sensitive content identifiers

Zoho WorkDrive gives you the power to configure DLP rules to protect files containing country-specific PII. You can select from 149 predefined types across 47 countries and regions, including national ID cards, bank account details, Social Security numbers, and more.

View the full list of supported sensitive information types

DLP Policy and Classification Labels limitations

DLP in Zoho WorkDrive relies on content extraction from uploaded files, with classification based solely on the extracted content. Currently, WorkDrive supports both text extraction and Optical Character Recognition (OCR) for accurate DLP classification.

Learn more about limitations associated with content and OCR extraction

How is Data Loss Prevention (DLP) used across teams and industries?

Teams:

Industries:

Final thoughts

In a world where data moves faster than ever, ensuring that sensitive information doesn’t fall into the wrong hands is critical. From automated policy enforcement to real-time monitoring, Data Loss Prevention in WorkDrive helps organizations mitigate risks, ensure regulatory compliance, and maintain customer trust by preventing unauthorized access or sharing of critical data. This enables your team to collaborate with confidence—knowing that sensitive information is continuously monitored, protected, and compliant with organizational policies.

Whether you're scaling your business or handling confidential data daily, WorkDrive ensures that security is never an afterthought. Start using WorkDrive today and take a proactive step toward smarter, safer data management.