Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) helps monitor, secure, and ensure compliance for sensitive data, reducing risks across diverse environments.
Complying with cybersecurity regulations can be a source of great pain for organizations, especially those that handle and store particularly valuable and vulnerable information. Organizations in sectors like healthcare, finance, legal, and government often process vast amounts of highly sensitive data, and regulations exist to ensure and verify that organizations are taking appropriate measures to protect employee, customer, and enterprise data.
With different regulations depending on location (like the EU’s GDPR), industry (like HIPAA), and whether an organization processes credit card payments (like PCI DSS), it can be difficult for organizations to understand and follow all of the regulations that apply to them and their data. This is one area where Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) can be of great use. One of the major functions of DSPM tools is to help organizations align their security strategies with relevant regulatory requirements.
What is DSPM?
In simple terms, DSPM is a data-centric approach to securing cloud environments. It helps organizations discover, classify, and protect their data against a constantly evolving threat landscape. The growth of cloud infrastructure has created a large, complex, and difficult-to-manage attack surface. DSPM tools provide a look into where sensitive data is stored and context regarding data access and governance: which users have access to which data, how the data is used, and the overall security posture of the data store.
The appeal of DSPM tools is in their ability to significantly simplify data protection processes across entire cloud environments, including all cloud platforms and data stores. Organizations can particularly benefit from DSPM if they employ sprawling and complex multi-cloud environments and have difficulty keeping track of the data they have spread out in the cloud.
Covering a wide range of data security functions, DSPM tools can “enable security teams to maintain a strong data security posture.” They offer visibility and insight by discovering shadow data and mapping data flows, empowering security teams to gain a comprehensive view of their attack surface and, more effectively, document, monitor, and protect sensitive business data.
Compliance Benefits of DSPM
Establishing and maintaining compliance with regulatory requirements demands a level of investment and coordination from organizations. Data privacy and protection regulations differ depending on the location, industry, and type of organization, and it is crucial for each organization to understand and fulfill the requirements that are applicable to them.
DSPM tools can help with this process in a number of ways. Obtaining a clear and full view of the organization’s data assets is a necessary step in protecting said data, and DSPM offers organizations a comprehensive understanding of all of the data across their cloud environments. DSPM tools can aggregate information from many sources across different cloud platforms and map data assets to regulatory requirements, saving organizations much of the tedious work of cross-referencing regulations to determine compliance requirements.
The data discovery and classification capabilities of DSPM tools make it far easier for organizations to understand where their data is most vulnerable and prioritize security measures based on risk, empowering more informed and effective security decisions. DSPM solutions can also detect security misconfigurations and vulnerabilities that may lead to data breaches, alerting organizations to potential security risks and compliance issues at the same time.
Best Practices for Leveraging DSPM for Compliance
In order to effectively leverage DSPM tools for data protection and regulatory compliance, it is important that organizations follow best practices for the implementation and management of these tools. Some of the most important considerations when using DSPM for the benefits of regulatory compliance include:
- Understanding the organization’s existing security posture, needs, and available resources for investing in deploying and managing new security tools.
- Ensuring proper research and due diligence are put into finding the right DSPM tool and vendor for the organization based on its needs and resources.
- Dedicating sufficient organization resources and staff to continuously monitoring and managing DSPM and other security tools to ensure the ongoing success and efficiency of security measures.
- Providing security teams with clear policies, responsibilities, and directives to equip them for success as they monitor and manage DSPM tools over time.
- Choosing a DSPM tool that integrates with the organization’s existing systems and platforms to avoid problems related to technological incompatibilities that may complicate the DSPM tool’s ability to discover and classify data.
With these and other best practices, organizations can effectively utilize DSPM to their advantage, helping them to protect their sensitive data and maintain compliance with regulatory requirements simultaneously.
Conclusion
Many organizations may have difficulties in understanding and following the various cybersecurity laws, regulations, and standards required of them. Rather than struggling to align security measures with compliance, organizations can implement security tools that help with achieving, maintaining, and documenting regulatory compliance.
DSPM tools can go a long way toward ensuring compliance with a variety of regulations, not only by offering visibility into an organization’s data but also by checking data security posture and security measures against relevant compliance requirements. Organizations can reap a great deal of benefits from DSPM tools, which enable them to ensure compliance with data privacy and security regulations.
About the author:
PJ Bradley is a writer on a wide variety of topics, passionate about learning and helping people above all else. Holding a bachelor’s degree from Oakland University, PJ enjoys using a lifelong desire to understand how things work to write about subjects that inspire interest. Most of PJ’s free time is spent reading and writing. PJ is also a regular writer at Bora.
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