DLP Incident Data Export to CSV Displays Garbled Text for Chinese Language Characters

Products

• Data Loss Prevention Network Monitor and Prevent for Email
• Data Loss Prevention
• Data Loss Prevention Cloud Package
• Data Loss Prevention Cloud Prevent for Microsoft Office 365
• Data Loss Prevention Discover Suite
• Data Loss Prevention Endpoint Prevent
• Data Loss Prevention Enforce
• Data Loss Prevention Enterprise Suite
• Data Loss Prevention Network Email
• Data Loss Prevention Network Monitor
• Data Loss Prevention Network Monitor and Prevent for Web
• Data Loss Prevention Network Prevent for Email
• Data Loss Prevention Network Monitor and Prevent for Email and Web
• Data Loss Prevention Network Protect
• Data Loss Prevention Network Web
• Data Loss Prevention Plus Suite

Issue/Introduction

When exporting incident data to a CSV report from Enforce Console, any column containing Chinese language characters—such as the "Endpoint Filename" or other fields—displays garbled text instead of the correct characters.

For example, a CSV spreadsheet might show:

这是用酷炫的语言对福特汽车的考验.xlsx

 

Environment

Release: 16.0 +

Cause

The issue occurs because the CSV file, exported in UTF-8 encoding, lacks a Byte Order Mark (BOM). Excel, when opening such files directly, fails to recognize the UTF-8 encoding without the BOM and instead interprets the data using a default legacy encoding, resulting in garbled text for Chinese language characters.

Resolution

This is not a Symantec DLP issue but a Microsoft Excel limitation. Symantec follows industry best practices by exporting incident data in UTF-8, a standard encoding for multilingual support. However, Excel requires a Byte Order Mark (BOM) to recognize UTF-8 when opening CSVs directly, which is necessary for Chinese characters to display correctly. Without it, Excel misinterprets the encoding, showing garbled text instead.

For solutions, refer to below Microsoft’s guidance on handling UTF-8 CSV files in Excel.

Opening CSV UTF-8 files correctly in Excel

Additional Information

How to reproduce? 

Go to Incidents and select any Reports (Endpoint, Network, Web etc)

1. Incidents => Endpoint

2. Select the incident(s) you wish to export to CSV

3. Click on Export as CSV

4. Export as CSV

When you open the CSV file in Excel, it may display garbled text. This is not a defect; rather, it occurs because Excel is loading the incorrect format.

Open the CSV with Notepad ++ it will show you the correct file name: