DataMapper: Understanding Email filtering

Introduction

At Safe Online, we are constantly working to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of our data discovery solutions. Our latest update to DataMapper introduces an advanced email filtering system that significantly reduces the scanning of non-sensitive information in Outlook accounts.

This article explains the new filtering system, why it's beneficial, and how it works.

Why Email Filtering?

Email accounts often contain a large volume of communications that, while important for daily operations, do not typically involve sensitive data. By filtering out such emails, DataMapper can focus on content with a higher likelihood of containing sensitive information, thus enhancing scan accuracy, reducing false positives, and improving overall performance.

How Does Email Filtering Work?

Our new filtering system specifically targets email domains known to send non-sensitive communications. These include automated alerts, newsletters, and other routine correspondence that are less likely to include sensitive data. Here’s a list of the types of email domains now excluded from scans by DataMapper:

• Automated Notifications such as no-reply@ , noreply@ , and alerts@
• Administrative Communications from addresses like admin@ , support@ , and webmaster@
• Marketing and Informational Broadcasts from marketing@ , info@ , and sales@
• Transactional Emails such as invoice@ , reservations@ , and guestservices@

Other filtered emails include, but are not limited to, the following accounts: No-reply@, noreply@, Alerts@, admin@, kontakt@, contact@, email@ emails@, info@, legal@, marketing@, medicalinfo@, events@, mail@, Confluence@, marketing@, Invoice@, post@, replyto@, patientcare@, reservations@, guestservices@, publishing@, sales@, salg@, support@, webmaster@

Benefits of Email Filtering

Implementing this email filtering offers several key advantages:

• Enhanced Efficiency: By ignoring emails that are unlikely to contain sensitive data, DataMapper spends less time scanning irrelevant content, speeding up the overall scanning process.
• Reduced False Positives: By eliminating routine and transactional emails from scans, the likelihood of false positives—where non-sensitive data is mistakenly flagged as sensitive—is significantly reduced.
• Cost-effective Scanning: With fewer irrelevant emails to process, your scans are not just faster but also more cost-effective, preserving storage and computing resources.
• Focused Results: Users receive scan results that are more relevant, making it easier to manage and protect truly sensitive data.

Examples of Improved Scanning

To illustrate, consider these scenarios:

1. Before Filtering: DataMapper scans all incoming emails, including daily newsletters from info@company.com , causing unnecessary alerts and a cluttered dashboard.
2. After Filtering: With the new email filters applied, these routine newsletters are no longer scanned, allowing the system to focus on potentially sensitive emails, such as those containing client information or financial data.

Conclusion

The new email filtering feature in DataMapper is designed to make your data protection efforts more targeted and effective. By focusing on emails that are more likely to contain sensitive information, DataMapper not only enhances security but also optimizes your resource use and administrative oversight.

Do you have questions? Please reach out to our Customer Success team via support@safeonline.dk - we are happy to answer any questions related to this new feature.