Insights from Gartner’s 2023 data security hype cycle – data security posture management (DSPM) highlights

Introduction

In the ever-evolving landscape of data security, staying ahead of emerging threats and challenges is critical for organizations. As we hit 2023, Gartner’s Hype Cycle for Data Security sheds light on the latest advancements and technologies that can bolster data security including data security posture management (DSPM). In this blog, we will delve into the key insights from the report and emphasize the significance of DSPM in shaping the data security industry.

The shifting data security landscape

Cloud service providers (CSPs) have revolutionized data analytics and data pipelines, presenting data security teams with novel challenges. As data is stored, accessed, and processed across various CSP architectures spanning different jurisdictions, the complexities of data security, residency, and privacy risks surge. To maintain consistent cloud data security, organizations must overcome the limitations of siloed or inadequate security controls, disjointed data classification, and fragmented integration. This necessitates the adoption of innovative data security strategies to prepare for the impacts posed by continued cloud transformation, generative AI and quantum computing.

The hype cycle for data security

Gartner’s Hype Cycle for Data Security, 2023 covers various aspects of data security that leaders must review based on their risk appetite and data storage, processing, and access practices. Some key areas of focus include… 

• Data security governance, privacy, and risk
• Data discovery, categorization, and classification of structured and unstructured data
• Data processing and analytics across endpoint, application or storage layers
• Anonymization, pseudonymization, privacy-enhanced technologies and other data protection techniques
• Monitoring access, activity, alerting and auditing of user activity with data
• Multi-cloud platforms with multifunctional data security functionalities 

New in this year’s hype cycle are sovereign data strategies that will support data security governance, privacy impact assessment, financial data risk assessment and data risk assessment. 

Hyping data security posture management (DSPM)

In its second year on the hype cycle, Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) stands out as a transformational tool. DSPM enables organizations to discover previously unknown data across CSPs, categorize and classify unstructured and structured data, and assess data maps and flows to determine the data security posture and privacy and security risks. DSPM serves as the foundation for conducting data risk assessments (DRA) and evaluating the implementation of data security governance (DSG) policies.

The importance of DSPM

As data proliferates across the cloud, the need to identify and address privacy and security risks becomes paramount. DSPM helps organizations transform their risk identification and assessment processes by discovering shadow data and analyzing data maps and flows. This provides critical insights into previously unassessed business risks. DSPM also facilitates consistent application of data security posture across disparate data security controls, ensuring effective risk mitigation in dynamic and complex multi-cloud data deployments.

Convergence of data security solutions is necessary for consistency of product functionality and workflow efficiency. Convergence of data discovery and classification with DSPM is required for innovation and integration across most data governance and security markets. Also DSPM, cloud data security governance, data risk assessments, FinDRA, privacy impact assessments, data breach response technology, and sovereign data strategies are increasingly needed to implement consistent policies, especially through their data residency impacts and as new privacy laws emerge. Convergence of these technologies will make processes more effective.

Driving factors for DSPM adoption

Several factors drive the adoption of DSPM:

• Dynamic changes to data pipelines: As data pipelines and services change rapidly across CSPs, shadow data repositories may emerge with unknown or inappropriate user access privileges, creating risks related to data segmentation, geographic location and misconfiguration.
• Regulatory requirements: Growing regulations necessitate Data Risk Assessments (DRA), fostering the demand for tools capable of assessing Data Security Governance (DSG) policies effectively.
• Prioritized infrastructure risks: Organizations aim to protect data against exposure due to cloud infrastructure vulnerabilities and misconfigurations, leading to potential partnerships of DSPM solutions with Cloud Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP).

Challenges and recommendations

While DSPM offers transformative benefits, challenges exist that must be addressed:

• Integration and orchestration: DSPM products may have varying abilities to integrate with third-party security products, leading to difficulties in orchestrating analytics and remediation across multiple tools. Organizations should assess integration capabilities and standardize remediation processes.
• Scalability and performance: As data volumes grow exponentially, DSPM solutions must scale effectively and maintain optimal performance. Data security professionals should carefully evaluate the capacity and efficiency of DSPM tools to handle large-scale data deployments.

Conclusion

As the data security landscape continues to evolve, security professionals must embrace innovative solutions like Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) to address emerging challenges effectively. DSPM offers transformative benefits by discovering shadow data, analyzing data flows, and ensuring consistent application of data security posture. By adopting DSPM and other cutting-edge data security technologies, organizations can strengthen their data security postures and safeguard sensitive information in an ever-changing digital landscape.

To learn more about DSPM, get your complimentary copy of Gartner® Innovation Insight: Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) here.