The drumbeat on data protection has been beating steadily for months now, as cast an unsavory light on the likes of HP, Starbucks, MCI, the University of California, and the Veterans Administration.

Those headlines have auditors pushing hard for companies to address the data leak problem, said Steve Roop, vice president of marketing at data protection firm Vontu, which is planning to announce its own major product upgrade on Monday.

"The big trend we've seen in the last six months is that auditors are giving very specific dates to do scanning, clean up data shares, and remove confidential data," said Roop.

Data theft and data protection are going to be major themes at the annual RSA Security Conference in San Francisco, which kicks off on Feb. 5, with more news from data protection news from companies like Tizor, Imperva, AppSec Security, and others on tap in the days and weeks ahead.