Data security is one of the most important considerations for organizations of all kinds and across all sectors. Protecting data in complex modern digital environments is difficult, and traditional tools and measures often fall short against evolving threats. It is crucial for organizations to assess and update their cybersecurity strategies and understand what each tool does for them.
Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) tools are designed to address evolving security needs as many organizations employ vast multi-cloud environments. Organizations should implement “a DSPM tool that protects all types of data, limits data exposure, and supports their overall security strategy and business objectives.” In order to effectively use DSPM to your greatest advantage, it is important to understand how it works and the role it fills within an organization’s security strategy.
The Need for Modern Data Security Tools
All businesses handle sensitive employee, customer, and company data that must be protected against a wide range of threats. Organizations in certain industries—like finance, healthcare, legal, and government institutions—are likely to store and handle massive amounts of highly sensitive data. This makes them especially vulnerable to cyberattacks and data breaches while ensuring that they are more heavily regulated by compliance laws.
With the growth in popularity of cloud platforms, many organizations store their data in stores spread out across multiple cloud platforms. Traditional data security tools and measures are generally ill-equipped to discover and protect data in these complex digital environments. Rather than being contained within a defined perimeter that can be protected, data is dispersed and often stored in externally hosted cloud environments.
Even beyond perimeter-strengthening measures, many data protection tools are still not designed to handle the threats to data security in modern cloud environments. Solutions that rely on searching specific stores or areas for risks are not able to effectively protect data, especially as the threat of shadow data grows, posing dangers that can only be mitigated with advanced data discovery capabilities. This is why it is necessary for organizations to implement tools that are built to address advanced and evolving threats in complex digital environments.
What is DSPM?
In light of evolving threats and cloud growth, DSPM is a data-first approach to securing complex digital landscapes. DSPM tools can feature a number of capabilities that are traditionally covered by standalone solutions. Some of the key functions of DSPM solutions include:
- Data discovery and classification—discovering data across multi-cloud environments, including IaaS, SaaS, and PaaS platforms, and classifying it according to sensitivity level.
- Risk assessment and prioritization—evaluating data security posture and risks to data using factors like access levels and threat trends and prioritizing risks based on the most pressing security needs.
- Real-time monitoring—continuously monitoring data security environments to identify suspicious activity and potential threats to data security.
- Configuration and policy management—identifying where security settings are misconfigured, or policies are misaligned with industry standards and best practices.
- Compliance management—helping to align security measures with relevant regulatory requirements and comply with data security and privacy laws.
- Behavior analytics—analyzing user and entity behavior to establish a baseline of normal behavior and detect anomalous activity that may indicate data security threats.
- Automation—using Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), and automation to streamline repetitive or intensive data protection tasks.
Also read: What Is The Importance of Identity Data for Business Growth?
How DSPM Benefits Organizations
Organizations can gain a number of advantages from the effective implementation of DSPM tools. As a data-focused approach to modern cloud security, DSPM tools are designed to account for the unique difficulties of protecting data that is spread out across multi-cloud environments, including shadow data. DSPM provides full visibility and valuable insight into not just the location of sensitive data but who has access to it, how it is changed and used, and what its security posture is.
DSPM plays a vital role in data security at a time when protecting sensitive data has never been more important or more complicated. It discovers and protects data across all kinds of cloud platforms, accounting for the risks of cloud environments and shadow data. It performs tasks and automates processes that are prohibitively difficult or time-consuming for human security teams to carry out themselves, especially as data volumes continue to balloon.
In addition to protecting data against emerging and evolving threats, DSPM also helps organizations maintain compliance with applicable data security and privacy regulations. An effective DSPM solution can help prevent not only the dangers of cyberattacks and data breaches but also the consequences of regulatory penalties. DSPM can ensure that organizations have comprehensive measures in place to protect their sensitive data and manage their security postures effectively and efficiently.
Implementing DSPM Effectively
To get the most protection and use out of a DSPM solution, organizations are encouraged to do their own research and due diligence in selecting the right tool for their needs. Different organizations have different security goals, available staffing and funding, and data assets to protect, and different DSPM tools have varying features and initial investment requirements.
Organizations should look for DSPM tools that integrate with their systems and connect to the cloud platforms they use. They should also ensure that they choose a tool with advanced capabilities like AI/ML and automation, cutting down on the workloads of human security teams and making it easier to handle and secure large volumes of data in complex digital landscapes.
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