A system and method of data protection that provides the security of field level data protection with the ease of implementation and transparency of system level data protection at various layers is disclosed. The system utilizes blockchain technology to implement improved data protection. A smart contract application is deployed among all devices covered by the data protection system. Ledgers are similarly deployed either on each device or on dedicated ledger nodes to provide a record of all transactions occurring with the protected data. As a device writes data to a storage medium or initiates transmission of the data over a communication medium, the smart contract intercepts the data and applies a desired protection protocol to the data. As a result, enterprise wide security may be deployed that provides field level encryption without requiring modifications to existing applications or development of custom applications.