New analysis from TechTarget’s Enterprise Strategy Group outlines how Harmonic Protect enables organizations to take advantage of generative AI while reducing risk

Harmonic Security today announces the findings of a technical review carried out by TechTarget’s Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG). Based on customer interviews as well as ‘hands on’ technical analysis it evaluated how Harmonic Protect helps organizations safeguard sensitive data and prevent its spread and misuse, especially via generative AI applications.

Harmonic Protect is a data protection platform designed to prevent sensitive data leakage, without the need for extensive data labeling or rule creation, whether that data is structured, unstructured, or semi structured. ESG’s research found that the ‘simple and fast deployment, based on its browser extension model, saved approximately 75% on project costs, resources, and time’ when compared with a standard DLP tool. It also stated that Harmonic Protect had 96% fewer alerts than existing data loss prevention (DLP) solutions. In its words, this shows ‘a massive reduction in false positives’ and citing a customer example said that ‘Harmonic Protect prevented sensitive loan information from being used in a generative AI prompt.’

Justin Boyer, Technical Validation Analyst at ESG explains: “Typical data protection strategies are time-consuming and expensive, requiring extensive data labeling and rule creation, with regular expressions to try to locate sensitive data. This often leads to false positives and creates more administrative overhead. Harmonic provides organizations with a solution that protects sensitive data without completely shutting down employees or ignoring the benefits of generative AI applications.”

ESG praised the ease of installation. It stated that ‘with a simple browser extension, Harmonic Protect works where the end user works’ and ‘can coach end users by detecting potential data loss within milliseconds and prompting the user to reconsider what data they’re sending to generative AI applications.’ It also commended ‘ready-made data models built to find sensitive data’ which ‘have been trained to use context to determine the risk of a particular set of data being exposed via generative AI tools such as ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, and Google Gemini.’

ESG provided some important industry context with research showing that 96% of its survey respondents are either already enforcing a specific governance structure for the use of generative AI or are currently developing one. In the scramble to catch up, 86% indicated that they have or are blocking access to one or more generative AI sites. Some 82% are concerned about data leakage as employees increasingly use generative AI, and another 82% are unsure if any employees are accessing generative AI sites or what they are doing on the sites.

Alastair Paterson, CEO and co-founder comments: “This is a detailed analysis from Justin Boyer at ESG where he took the time to really learn our product and speak with the customers that use it. The firm has concluded that Harmonic Protect helps employees make better decisions in real time, with fewer false positives. We see this as important validation that we are on the right track to displacing legacy DLP tools and helping organizations use AI with the confidence they need to transform their business.”

To read the full report please visit this link

About Harmonic

Harmonic Security gives security teams the tools to protect sensitive data without the headaches of labeling and complex rules. Our pre-trained data protection models enable secure innovation through user education and gentle nudges.

Recognized as an RSA Innovation Sandbox finalist in 2024, Harmonic Security redefines data protection for the GenAI era.

For more information, visit https://www.harmonic.security/

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20241120260530/en/