Management Challenges in the Implementation of an Email Boundary Control for Data Leakage Prevention

In a digital economy, more of an organisation's valuable assets are digital, enabling competitive advantage. However, they also represent a threat, illustrated by increasing levels of data leakage. Such leakage via email remains a key concern across organisations and, to combat this, a range of data leakage prevention (DLP) measures exist. One such technology is an email boundary control (or guard). However, even with mature tools there is a gap between availability and adoption, that this paper proposes is due to the management challenges in application, rather than technology. The home working trend, accelerated by the pandemic, has further exacerbated data leakage risks and heightened the need to ensure an organisation's operations remain resilient and enable trust while keeping private data secure. This paper describes work whose methodology combined the results of a literature review with an in-depth practical case study in an industrial company. This was followed by analysis of the management challenges and then proposed steps to address these. The steps require management commitment and subject matter expertise. Finally, this applied research is important to industry to address the gap between technological capability and its application, in order to support the secure sustainment of increasingly digital enterprises.