Exploring The Growing Popularity Of Data Security Posture Management

Uploaded on 2025-03-19 in TECHNOLOGY--Resilience, TECHNOLOGY--Developments, FREE TO VIEW

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A recent study by Edge Delta revealed that about 89% of organizations use a multi-cloud approach. About three years ago (in 2022), only 61% were using the cloud—34% used one, while 27% used two.

Clearly, more businesses are turning to the cloud, and the numbers are expected to increase exponentially in the coming days.

However, as much as this shift offers a lot of flexibility and freedom, ensuring data security is always challenging. And surprisingly, studies show that cloud security is a crucial concern for about 83% of companies. That’s why DSPM and other more advanced security approaches are receiving a broad welcome across several organizations.

But before we examine the reasons behind this trend and other issues, let’s first understand the infrastructure.

Decoding DSPM

This cybersecurity approach works by focusing on sensitive data across multiple cloud environments. First, it identifies sensitive data, assesses its vulnerability to attacks, and examines the risk of not complying with regulations. By providing insight and automation, DSPM allows security teams to address security issues more promptly.

Well, as much as it has become increasingly popular, DSPM was first introduced and defined in 2022 in Gartner’s Hype Cycle for Data Security report. Since it focuses on securing data regardless of location and storage medium, most individuals refer to DSPM as a ‘data-first’ security approach.

It inverts the protection models used in other cybersecurity technologies so that data is protected directly instead of securing the environment in which data is housed, moved or processed.

Understanding The Popularity Of DSPM

We have already hinted at how many businesses opt for the cloud to optimize their operations. For instance, a recent study by Oracle revealed that moving to the cloud could help businesses reduce energy consumption and carbon footprint by up to 90%. But just as we said, these benefits come with the challenge of ensuring data security and compliance on these platforms.

Since data is scattered across multiple stores, security teams need consistent knowledge about where sensitive data is stored, its vulnerability and those who can access it. While this may sound simple, it can really be a complex process. In fact, a study by Sync that goes along these lines found that as much as cloud-native approaches can improve speed and agility, they can add complexity, a concern of about 41% of respondents.

Some of these complexities are fuelled by the need for new, specialized approaches like automated security assessment, explaining the growing appeal of more advanced approaches like DSPM. Protecting sensitive data by just avoiding unauthorized access or identifying and blocking suspicious actions is not enough for cybercriminals who have become more advanced.

Of course, if they don’t address all the vulnerabilities, they leave companies at risk of security attacks. One of the gravest risks is shadow data, where companies aren’t able to manage or govern backed-up information with the same security teams as the original data.

Let’s consider when DevOps teams are developing and testing new environments, for example. Since they handle lots of data daily, a single misconfiguration could make all or most of it susceptible to attacks. And mark you: Recovering from security incidents is not a walk in the park.

According to IBM, you can spend up to $4.88 million just recovering from such incidents. And given that this figure is expected to increase in the coming days, you don’t want to turn a blind eye to cloud security. And besides just incurring financial costs, cyberattacks can affect your brand reputation.

We live in a time when consumers have become more discerning, and encountering a security incident can affect their perception of your brand. In fact, according to cxscoop.com, 83% may take several months after the incident before they can transact with you again. 21% may never return. In response to such statistics, you’d better adopt more advanced solutions like DSPM to get ahead of cybercriminals and ensure long-term business performance.

How, Then, Does DSPM Work?

With the promise of improving cloud security that DSPM offers, you want to know how it works. It’s usually ‘agentless’ and doesn’t need you to deploy separate software apps to each resource you’re monitoring. And while there might not really be a consensus on its details, it mainly has four components:

Data Discovery
DSPM solutions scan different parts, including on-premises and in-cloud environments, to identify where sensitive data exists. Other sections could include all cloud providers and services, data types, data stores, etc.

Data Classification
As you may know, classification basically organizes data into various ‘classes’ depending on a given criterion. In DSPM, this process classifies data according to sensitivity based on several factors:

Sensitivity Level
Those authorized to access data
Data storage, handling and use

Risk Asessment & Prioritization
At this point, DSPM helps to identify:

Misconfigurations: Missing or incomplete security settings that may expose you to unauthorized access
Overentitlements: When some users have more access privileges that is needed to accomplish their work
Data flow and data lineage issues: Monitors all places that data gets to and those that have access to each of those places
Security policy and regulatory frameworks

Remediation & prevention
Once security teams have identified vulnerabilities according to severity, they can begin remediating the most critical ones. Good enough, several DSPM solutions offer procedural instructions to help with that. Others automate modifications to improve protection against data exposure.

It’s true that as more people turn to the cloud, the need to combat threats also increases. Thankfully, infrastructures like DSPM can help with that, explaining their growing appeal.

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