Data Overexposure: The Biggest Threat to Compliance Administrators

Seattle WA, USA– September 30, 2025.

Data overexposure is the biggest threat facing today’s compliance administrators. In this blog, we’ve previously explored the unique challenges we face, especially with the rise of Gen-AI tools, and how Synergy Advisors is helping organizations respond using Microsoft Purview and E-Suite tools. From our consulting experience, we know how effective these tools can be at preventing data breaches. Now, Microsoft has gone one step further – they commissioned a study by Forrester Consulting to quantify the economic impact of leveraging Microsoft Purview – and the results were surprising.

Key Findings from the Forrester Study

The headline reads that Microsoft Purview reduces the likelihood of a data breach by 30%, but that’s just the beginning. It’s easy to understand how less risk of a data breach saves organizations time and money, but take a look at some of these other hidden cost savings uncovered by Forrester:

Reduction in Incident Investigation Time

Security teams are able to reduce time spent investigating an incident by 75%.

End User Efficiency

End users spent 75% less time searching for and classifying data.

Reduction in Manual Compliance Tasks

Compliance teams saw a 60% reduction in manual efforts associated with classification, retention, and audit activities.

Consolidated Infrastructure

The average organization using Purview saved half a million dollars (USD) over three years by consolidating infrastructure and tools.

Forrester also found qualitative benefits. Organizations reported a dramatic increase in end users understanding security and compliance risks and responding by leveraging the Microsoft 365 tools appropriately. Data protection became an organization-wide team effort, rather than the responsibility of a small IT team. Unified information governance provided by Purview standardized data classification, management, access, and protection. Forrester found that an agile data environment significantly increases the speed of innovation, without sacrificing data protection and compliance. Read the full report here: https://cdn-dynmedia-1.microsoft.com/is/content/microsoftcorp/microsoft/bade/documents/products-and-services/en-us/security/mccs-ms-purview-final-9-3.pdf

Next Steps to Modernize Your Data Security Strategy

We’ve outlined the benefits of implementing Purview to protect your organization against data risks. Some of those benefits can be quantified, enabling you to see the potential return on investment. But what are the next steps?

Herain Oberoi, Microsoft’s Vice President of Data Security, Compliance, and Privacy, recently stated that the first step to modernize your data security strategy is to conduct a thorough assessment of your current data landscape to identify and classify sensitive data across your organization. At Synergy Advisors, we believe the best way to approach this task is to start with the services provided by Purview. We’ve recently developed a new report, E-Visor Document Tracking & Protection, to accelerate this discovery. E-Visor leverages Microsoft’s sensitive information types, labels, encryption policies, sharing controls, and more to report your organization’s risk of data overexposure. Our architects use this report to show you prioritized and actionable insights into your data estate and help you build an optimized roadmap so you can start realizing the impact of Purview as quickly as possible.

Oberoi continues with a second step: protect sensitive data used in all applications by implementing encryption and rights management controls. Encryption controls, powered by Microsoft Information Protection sensitivity labels, control who can access what data and what they can do with it. If you are just beginning with sensitivity labels, you can use Purview’s auto-labeling capabilities to automatically apply labels based on content and location. You can also leverage our E-Inspector tool to solve for advanced scenarios that must consider additional variables before applying the appropriate controls to your sensitive data. With E-Inspector, you can act on additional triggers, such as the author’s role or region, whether the file is considered stale or has duplicates, and more. You can also apply additional actions to further restrict oversharing, such as changing the file’s sharing controls and permissions, moving the file to a more secure location, and ensuring the file is not returned via unauthorized Gen-AI prompts.

Both E-Visor Document Tracking and Protection and E-Inspector are now available for purchase through the Microsoft Marketplace, enabling you to transact directly through the Microsoft ecosystem, simplifying the procurement process and accelerating deployment. Leverage your existing contracts and payment methods with Microsoft, giving you access to a robust and reliable tool, backed by Synergy Advisors and Microsoft 365 security standards. For more information, take a look at the offering here:

Why Choose Synergy Advisors as Your Strategic Partner?

With over 14 years of experience and a deep specialization in Security, Compliance, and Modern Work, Synergy Advisors is ready to help your organization address the growing challenge of sensitive data exposure. With E-Visor for Document Tracking & Protection, we go beyond delivering a tool to help provide a strategic approach that bridges technical insights and business decisions.