US Patent 9069992 System and method for reducing data loss prevention scans

A computing device receives a file. The computing device determines whether the file has previously been scanned for violations of a data loss prevention policy. If the file was previously scanned, a result of the previous scan is used to decide whether or not the file violates the data loss prevention policy. If the file was not previously scanned, the file is scanned to decide whether or not the file violates the data loss prevention policy.