The LA Times recently reported on a suspected breach involving a public sector legal office and a third-party tool used to transfer discovery materials. According to the report, the exposed data included a large volume of highly sensitive records, including witness information, medical data, unredacted legal documents, personnel records, and investigative materials.
Without getting ahead of the facts, there is a pretty straightforward lesson here. Sensitive data rarely stays in one place. It moves through legal workflows, file transfers, collaboration tools, archives, and third-party platforms. Once that happens, the risk is no longer limited to the system where the data started.
Discovery Alone is Not Sufficient
That is why discovery matters, but it is not enough on its own.
Organizations need to know where sensitive data lives, how it is classified, who has access to it, and what protections follow it as it moves. If you can find the data but cannot control access and handling around it, the gap is still there.
This is where archTIS’ product offerings, Spirion and NC Protect, can help.
The Spirion Sensitive Data Platform (SDP) is built to help organizations discover and classify sensitive data across a wide range of environments. That visibility matters because most organizations do not have a single copy of sensitive data sitting neatly in one system. It gets copied, exported, shared, and stored in places that were never meant to become long-term repositories of risk. archTIS positioned Spirion SDP as a key part of its broader data-centric security approach following its acquisition of Spirion on September 30, 2025.
Data Access Governance is Critical for Protection
NC Protect addresses the next part of the problem. NC Protect applies dynamic, attribute-based access control (ABAC) and protection policies so organizations can determine who gets access to sensitive information, under what conditions, and what protections should apply. In Microsoft 365 and SharePoint environments, this includes policy-based control over access, sharing, and protection at the data layer rather than relying only on static permissions.
That matters because static access models break down quickly once sensitive information starts moving between teams, systems, and external tools. It is one thing to know a file contains sensitive data. It is another to make sure that the file is only available to the right people, with the right protections, at the right time. archTIS describes this as a data-centric approach, and that is exactly the kind of gap incidents like this bring into focus.
The Risks Introduced by Data Proliferation and Collaboration
The other reason this matters is that the public reporting suggests the exposure was tied to a third-party workflow rather than the primary environment where the records originated. That is an important distinction.
Many organizations spend time securing core platforms, but give less attention to the handoffs around them. In practice, that is often where risk builds up. Files leave the original system, move into legal, compliance, or operational workflows, and suddenly, sensitive data is sitting somewhere with a very different security posture.
This is also where the integration between Spirion and NC Protect becomes relevant. NC Protect leverages Spirion’s data classification and dynamic playbooks to automate sensitive data discovery and apply real-time protection policies across Microsoft 365. That is important because data discovery on its own tells you where the risk is. Data protection helps you do something about it.
Understanding the Importance of Data Visibility and Control
The bigger point is simple. Sensitive data sprawl is real, especially when information is copied, exported, or shared for legitimate business reasons. Organizations need visibility, but they also need enforcement.
Discovery tools tell you where sensitive data is.
Data-centric security tools put the proper guardrails around it.
That is why this conversation matters. It is not just about where sensitive data starts. It is about where it ends up, who can access it, and whether the right controls are still in place when it gets there.
Discover how archTIS solutions can help you gain visibility and protect sensitive data across your organization. Contact us to get a conversation started.
