The new DLP Buyer’s Guide for RSA Conference Expo 2013 has arrived. In creating this year’s Buyer’s Guide, we discovered some interesting findings. The first wasn’t all that surprising: many vendors are still trying to ride the coattails of the data loss prevention marketplace. Understandably, these companies want to be discovered by potential buyers in as many instances as possible. The unfortunate consequence is the term data loss prevention gets watered down.

In the Guide, the “Not DLP” extreme included a number of companies that focus on data destruction. Along with those were a spattering of generic security technologies that don’t do any content aware data loss prevention. And finally, the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP). Hard to blame them for tagging along.

Probably the most interesting finding is the fact that a number of the major, reputable DLP vendors neglected to get themselves listed in the expo vendor directory under the category of “data loss prevention” on the Interactive Floor Plan. Among those vendors included RSA – the vendor host of the RSA Conference.

Joining RSA in this dubious category of vendors included McAfee – one of the original founders of the DLP, Trend Micro and Verdasys. Now mind you, this Buyer’s Guide is specifically designed to point out the DLP vendors as listed in the RSA Conference Expo under the data loss prevention category. These four vendors are exhibiting, but just do not have their name associated with the DLP category.

Even more interesting is the fact that we attempted to contact each vendor. One vendor heeded our contact and corrected the oversight, becoming listed in the DLP category just a few days before we published. As of the time of this post, the other four remain unlisted in the DLP category.

Some additional interesting findings:

• Verdasys, a long-time DLP vendor with an endpoint bent and one of the few remaining pure-play DLP vendors, is back at RSA Conference Expo. Too bad they failed to include themselves in the directory. In fact, they were one of nearly 40 exhibitors whose profile apparently didn’t include any categories. They only show up when the category “None” is selected.
• Fidelis Cybersecurity Solutions (formerly known as Fidelis Security Systems until acquired by General Dynamics last year), appears to have completed a move away from DLP to Cybersecurity. This evolution has taken a few years, but the GD acquisition must have sealed it. While the company showed some early promise with their network DLP appliance, they chose not to pursue an endpoint DLP solution to round out their offering. Whether by design or not, this kept them from vying for a leadership position in the DLP space.
• Palisade Systems did not reply to our requests for information regarding the RSA Conference Expo. They were a passive participant last year with a session presented by their CTO. In the past few years, they’ve had a revolving door at the CEO position and even now their CFO is listed as “Interim CEO.”
• GTB Technologies also did not reply to our requests for information.