What is Data Security Posture Management? Explained
Harsh Sahu
CTO
April 2024 | 13 mins
DSPM focuses on securing sensitive data across cloud environments by continuous monitoring, intelligent automation to identify and mitigate vulnerabilities, ensuring compliance and preventing unauthorized access or data breaches.
DSPM is an integral part of any data security platform. By offering insights into data location, access, and usage, DSPM enables organizations to maintain a robust security posture, protecting their most valuable asset—data—in the face of increasing risks and complex cloud ecosystems.
In this blog, you will learn about capabilities and requirements for DSPM to help your organization create strategy and tactics for addressing cloud data security posture with a systematic, comprehensive, and effective process.
The projected surge in global data, from 120 zettabytes in 2023 to 181 zettabytes by 2025, underscores the urgency for robust data security strategies. This growth, fueled by digital transformation and cloud adoption, leaves enterprises vulnerable to data breaches, primarily driven by financial motives- 94.6% to be exact.
Recognizing these risks, the focus has shifted towards Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) as a solution. DSPM provides essential tools for identifying and protecting sensitive data across complex cloud environments, addressing the critical security challenges of today's data-driven landscape.
Considering that 47% of companies have at least one exposed cloud-hosted database or storage bucket, and over 20% of these exposed cloud environments contain sensitive data, DSPM is more crucial than ever.
Projected by Gartner, “By 2026, more than 20% of organizations will deploy DSPM, due to the urgent need to find previously unknown data repositories and their geographic locations to help mitigate security and privacy risks.”
#1 Enhanced Threat Detection through AI: AI-driven DSPM solutions provide comprehensive, real-time analysis to detect security risks early and maintain threat posture.
#2 Improved Compliance and Governance: Automates data classification and policy enforcement, streamlining regulatory compliance with GDPR, CCPA, etc.
#3 Detailed Access Control and Monitoring: Offers precise control over data access, continuously monitoring for security threats from within.
#4 Rapid Incident Response: Automated alerts and workflows enable quick mitigation of security incidents, minimizing impact.
#5 Effective Cloud Service Integration: DSPM solutions work seamlessly with cloud platforms, enhancing data security measures.
$6 Agility and Data Control: DSPM allows organizations to maintain control over their data, adjusting policies as needed without manual intervention.
#7 Reduced Cloud Costs: Identifies redundant data, helping to decrease storage costs and minimize the attack surface.
.png)
Organizations are increasingly using multi-cloud infrastructures, which leads to misconfigurations, risks related to access, complex services, distributed infrastructure. This hampers the assessing abilities of security teams to detect, protect and govern their sensitive data like PII, PHI, PCI, etc.
Discover sensitive data (both structured and unstructured) in your cloud environments, including forgotten databases and shadow data stores.
Classify sensitive data and map it to regulatory frameworks for identifying areas of exposure and how much data is exposed, and tracking data lineage to understand where it came from and who had access to the data.
Discover attack paths to sensitive data that weigh data sensitivity against identity, access, vulnerabilities, and configurations – thus, prioritizing risks based on which are most important.
By automating identification and management of misconfigurations, outdated policies, faulty data classification, excessive permissions, and more, DSPM helps you better protect your data.
Using automation to continuously monitor and strengthen your security posture, DSPM enables your security team to focus on other high-value priorities while helping you avoid the costs of a breach.
Organizations worldwide are subject to data protection regulations (e.g., GDPR, HIPAA, and PCI-DSS), which require them to implement adequate security measures to protect personal and sensitive information. DSPM solutions aid in identifying and bridging security gaps that could lead to fines and compromise customer trust.
The DSPM platform will automate capabilities for assessing the security posture of cloud data, detecting and remediating risks, and ensuring compliance.
In general, it’s useful to look for a DSPM platform that is agentless and deploys natively in any of the major clouds (AWS, Azure, GCP).
The platform should provide 100% API access to easily integrate the use of any of your existing tools’ data required for using DSPM in your organization’s environment.
Naturally, the platform should also use attribute-based access control to keep the management of data security posture just as secure as the sensitive data should be.
All of these will minimize roadblocks and make DSPM quickly productive for your teams.
Data security posture management (DSPM) provides visibility as to where sensitive data is, who has access to that data, how it has been used and what the security posture of the data store or application is. This requires a data flow analysis to determine the data sensitivity. DSPM forms the basis of a data risk assessment (DRA) to evaluate the implementation of data security governance (DSG) policies. – Gartner
DSPM solutions identify sensitive data within organizational networks and infrastructure and combine auditing, monitoring, cloud compliance, and remediation to ensure proactive data protection.
DSPM tools provide visibility into your cloud data inventory — the various services where sensitive data are stored across IaaS, PaaS, and DBaaS deployments. This could include managed cloud warehouses (Amazon Redshift, Google BigQuery, or Snowflake), unmanaged or semi-managed databases running on virtual machines, and object storage (Amazon S3, Google Cloud Storage, or Azure Blob).
Object stores can pose significant risks due to their unstructured nature and the tendency to use them for backups, landing zones, replications, and raw data storage. Organizations might store public web assets and confidential customer information in cloud storage, increasing the likelihood of misconfigurations or human errors causing mix-ups. Virtual machines present another set of problems when, unknown to security teams, they store sensitive data.
DSPM addresses these challenges by identifying all data assets in the cloud account and regularly scanning the content for sensitive records. By mapping the storage and processing of sensitive data, DSPM establishes a foundation for policy enforcement and alerts.
Different types of sensitive data present different levels of risk and warrant specific responses. An organization might store IP addresses, PII data, credit card details, and access keys. None of these should fall into the wrong hands, but some pose a larger threat than others.
DSPM tools automatically classify each dataset in the cloud account, allowing security teams to prioritize policies and incident response on the most critical data assets. By prioritizing the assets containing the highest-risk data, organizations can effectively manage their data security posture and ensure that appropriate security controls for the context of the data are in place.
For example, a dataset containing PII related to named customers would likely take priority over a dataset containing aggregated, anonymized user data, making suspicious data flows involving the former high-priority issues and those involving the latter less urgent.
Access governance is a key feature of DSPM. It involves managing who has access to what data and ensuring that access rights are granted based on the principle of least privilege, which states that individuals should have access only to the data they need to perform their job functions. DSPM helps organizations to enforce this principle by providing visibility into access controls and identifying instances of excessive or inappropriate access.
DSPM provides capabilities for policy control, allowing organizations to define security policies that specify how data should be protected and who should have access to it. DSPM will then apply the defined controls — which might include encryption, tokenization, access restrictions — and enforce them across the organization's datastores, ensuring consistent data protection and reducing the risk of unauthorized access.
Once the sensitive data has been detected and classified, DSPM tools help to enforce practices meant to enhance the overall security posture related to data access — such as permissions, encrypted storage, and user management.
Monitoring and managing static risk involves examining the various security configurations and access controls associated with datastores that hold sensitive information.
DSPM solutions continuously assess the cloud environment for misconfigurations, improper access controls, and other vulnerabilities that can lead to data breaches or unauthorized access. By identifying and remediating these issues, organizations can significantly reduce the likelihood of a security incident and maintain a strong data security posture.
Using DSPM capabilities, security teams can audit and adjust user permissions, identify overprivileged accounts, and enforce attribute based access control (ABAC) to limit the potential attack surface.
In addition, DSPM solutions can verify that data is encrypted at rest and in transit, and that proper key management practices protect sensitive information from unauthorized access.
DSPM solutions provide reporting and real-time dashboards that prioritize vulnerabilities according to severity, so that security and risk management teams can focus on remediating the most critical issues.
Many DSPM solutions also provide step-by-step remediation instructions or incident response playbooks for resolving potential risks or data security threats in progress.
Some DSPM solutions automate modifications to application or system configurations, access controls and security software settings to better protect against potential data exposure.
All DSPM continuously monitors the environment for new data assets and continually audits those assets for potential security risks.
Organizations need to adhere to various data protection laws like GDPR, HIPAA, PCI DSS, and CCPA, each imposing strict mandates on handling sensitive data.
DSPM platforms play a crucial role in ensuring compliance by detecting, classifying, and mapping data to relevant laws, highlighting compliance gaps, and providing comprehensive dashboards for data officers to manage compliance effectively. This not only secures sensitive data but also streamlines compliance documentation for audits.
Cloud security posture management, or CSPM, is a cybersecurity technology that automates and unifies the identification and remediation of misconfigurations and security risks across hybrid cloud and multicloud environments and services.
CSPM sounds similar to DSPM, but the two differ in focus. CSPM focuses on finding and remediating vulnerabilities at the cloud infrastructure level, more specifically in compute units (such as virtual machines or containers) and PaaS implementations. DSPM focuses on finding and remediating vulnerabilities at the data level. DSPS is more of information security posture management.
The more organizations expand their cloud adoption, the more they’re likely to need both CSPM to limit or prevent unauthorized access to cloud infrastructure assets and DSPM to limit or prevent unauthorized access to the data those assets contain.
Organizations need both CSPM and DSPM solutions. They are separate but complementary technologies. When a CSPM leverages the rich data context from the DSPM, the security teams can focus on those alerts that impact highly sensitive data, thereby gaining a higher return on remediation efforts.
The two technologies cover different perspectives that are needed to effectively secure multi-cloud environments. One is focused on their primary user of the infrastructure team. The other is designed for data security teams that prioritize security, governance, and privacy requirements independent of infrastructure.
To understand your CSPM and DSPM requirements, request a personalized demo with our experts.
Deploying Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) solutions can significantly increase an organization's defense against various data-related vulnerabilities.
Scenario: An IT team inadvertently leaves a cloud database exposed to the internet without proper access controls, making sensitive data publicly accessible.
How DSPM Helps: DSPM tools continuously scan the cloud environment for misconfigurations. Upon detecting an exposed database, the system automatically alerts the security team and can suggest or enforce immediate remediation actions, such as configuring access controls or firewall rules, to prevent unauthorized access.
Scenario: An organization's API endpoints are not properly secured, allowing unauthorized access to sensitive data through the application layer.
How DSPM Helps: DSPM solutions monitor API configurations and interactions with data stores, identifying endpoints that expose sensitive data without adequate security measures. It then alerts developers or security personnel to apply necessary security protocols, such as authentication, authorization, encryption, and rate limiting, to secure the APIs.
Scenario: An organization relies on outdated legacy systems that are not fully compatible with modern security measures, leading to potential data leaks.
How DSPM Helps: DSPM platforms can identify and classify data stored in legacy systems, assess their security posture, and highlight vulnerabilities. This information enables IT teams to prioritize security upgrades or apply additional protective measures, such as data encryption and monitoring, to safeguard against data leaks.
Scenario: An employee or contractor with legitimate access misuses their privileges to access and exfiltrate sensitive company data.
How DSPM Helps: By continuously monitoring data access patterns and user behaviors, DSPM solutions can detect unusual activities that may indicate an insider threat, such as accessing a high volume of sensitive files unexpectedly. The system alerts security teams to these anomalies for further investigation and potential intervention, mitigating the risk of internal data breaches.
Scenario: Over time, changes in data storage, processing practices, or regulatory requirements may lead to an organization's data handling processes becoming non-compliant with industry standards or laws, such as GDPR, HIPAA, or CCPA.
How DSPM Helps: DSPM tools provide continuous compliance monitoring, automatically detecting deviations from compliance standards across all data stores and flows. They alert compliance and security teams to these issues, enabling quick remediation to avoid regulatory penalties and reputational damage.
Creating a robust Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) framework is essential for protecting sensitive data within any organization's cloud environment.
To enhance your approach towards DSPM, consider these best practices that not only encompass configuration and planning but also integrate advanced techniques and strategies for a comprehensive data security posture.
Achieving granular visibility into your data is the cornerstone of data breach prevention. Employ advanced machine learning algorithms and data tagging methodologies to categorize both structured (e.g., Personally Identifiable Information, financial records) and unstructured data (e.g., proprietary source code, trade secrets).
This approach enables a deeper understanding of where critical data resides, facilitating targeted security measures.
Elevate your cybersecurity hygiene by implementing dynamic access controls and adopting a Zero Trust model, where verification is required from anyone trying to access resources in your network, regardless of their location.
This includes managing and continuously validating privileged access, thereby minimizing data breach risks, enhancing customer trust, and ensuring regulatory compliance with minimal disruption to user productivity.
In a constantly evolving data landscape, it's crucial to not only monitor but proactively assess risks associated with new and modified data repositories. Employ AI-driven tools for continuous monitoring of network traffic, system logs, and user activities.
Ensure alignment with global data protection regulations (e.g., GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA, PCI DSS) through advanced compliance frameworks, thus moving beyond mere data classification to ensure comprehensive compliance.
Transform your risk management approach by utilizing data analytics and threat intelligence for sophisticated risk analysis and prioritization. Develop an incident response framework that leverages real-time alerts and automated remediation processes. This enables your team to swiftly identify, prioritize, and neutralize threats, significantly reducing the potential impact of data breaches.
Foster a culture of security within your organization by establishing a strategic policy framework that encompasses data access, management, storage, and disposal. These policies should be informed by best practices, industry standards, and regulatory requirements. Invest in regular training programs to enhance awareness and understanding of these policies among your team, thereby minimizing the risk of human error and data misuse.
By adopting these refined best practices, organizations can not only safeguard their data in the cloud but also build a resilient and responsive data security posture that is prepared to face the challenges of tomorrow's cybersecurity landscape.
When selecting a Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) solution, ensuring it aligns with your organization's specific needs and technology stack is paramount.
Here’s what to look for in a DSPM solution, tailored to ensure comprehensive data protection and compliance:
Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) stands as a critical pillar for protecting sensitive data. OptIQ exemplifies the ideal DSPM solution by offering seamless integration, advanced data classification through machine learning, comprehensive security posture assessments, and vigilant monitoring of data access and movements.
We tailor our platform for modern organizations navigating the complexities of multi-cloud environments, ensuring a broad coverage across IaaS, PaaS, and DBaaS platforms.
With its proactive alerts and real-time analysis, OptIQ empowers organizations to safeguard their data effectively against breaches and unauthorized access, embodying a strategic tool that fortifies an organization's data security framework.
OptIQ is not just a DSPM platform; it's a cornerstone for organizations aiming to secure their digital assets while fostering innovation and growth with confidence.
Start your DSPM journey by requesting a demo of the OptIQ DSPM platform.
DLP (Data Loss Prevention) focuses on identifying and preventing the unauthorized use and transmission of confidential information to mitigate the risk of data breaches. It typically involves content inspection and contextual analysis of data in use, in motion, and at rest within an organization's network.
DSPM (Data Security Posture Management), on the other hand, is a broader approach that involves identifying, assessing, and managing data security risks across an organization's data landscape. It includes discovering sensitive data, classifying it, monitoring for vulnerabilities, and ensuring compliance with data protection regulations. While DLP is a component of an organization's data protection strategy, DSPM provides a comprehensive framework for managing and improving the overall data security posture.
DSPM solution is important for an organization to discover where their sensitive data lies, classify and tag them with labels, so as to govern users using data governance policies and security policy controls. This helps in mitigating risks and vulnerabilities by prioritizing remediation and prevention for continuous regulatory compliance.
DSPM is a broader category of solution for data security and data classification is a part of DSPM. Data classification helps in classifying sensitive data of an organization by labelling them with categories such as PII, PHI, PCI or custom defined business sensitives as per an organization's need.
