A guide on how to leverage DSPM with your security stack and enhance data security posture

The proliferation of cloud-based computing has allowed organizations to innovate at an unprecedented pace. It’s also created a sharp rise in cloud data, and along with that, the challenge of protecting this data from malicious elements that live online, such as data breaches, misuse, violation, and leakage to a business.

Increasingly, businesses are turning to what Gartner™ has termed Data Security Posture Management (DSPM). This is a term that describes software solutions that have been developed to classify and protect data natively inside a range of existing cloud environments.

DSPM solutions help organizations achieve data security compliance, reduce data breach risks, lower cloud costs, remediate ROT data, and enable data-driven innovation. If you’re interested in learning more about how to choose a DSPM Solution for your organization, we’ve put together a comprehensive guide to help you make an informed decision.

Organizations need other cloud security tools that complement DSPM and help them secure all aspects of their cloud environment, such as infrastructure, applications, services, identity, access, encryption, vulnerability management, etc. Some examples of other cloud security tools are Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM), Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB), Security Information and Event Management (SIEM), Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR), and more.

In this article, we will help you understand DSPM integrations with other cloud security tools to enhance your cloud security posture. We will also show how Laminar can help you achieve seamless and effective integration with various cloud security tools.

DSPM with CSPM make a good pair

While innovative DSPM provides data security, and it works best when paired with CSPM, allowing for a more robust security coverage.

CSPM, cloud security posture management, helps secure your cloud infrastructure configurations and policies. CSPM solutions scan and monitor your cloud resources and identify any misconfigurations or vulnerabilities that could expose your data or compromise your security. CSPM solutions also help you remediate or prevent any misconfigurations by applying best practices and standards.

DSPM adds a layer of data awareness and protection to CSPM. While CSPM helps you secure your cloud infrastructure, Laminar’s DSPM secures your cloud data. DSPM solutions scan and monitor your cloud data and identify any sensitive or regulated data that could be at risk or non-compliant, and they do so no matter where the data resides. Because of this, DSPM complements CSPM solutions. DSPM solutions provide additional data context, such as sensitivity and usage details, so you can better prioritize remediation efforts. DSPM solutions also help you remediate or improve data security posture by orchestrating appropriate actions such as encryption, masking, tokenization, deletion, quarantine, etc.

By integrating DSPM with CSPM, Laminar allows you to achieve a comprehensive and strong cybersecurity posture. It ensures that both your cloud infrastructure and your cloud data are secure and compliant. This also reduces the likelihood and impact of data breaches and data leakage in your cloud environment. To learn more about the differences between DSPM and CSPM, check out our blog post on DSPM vs CSPM, and why you need both for comprehensive cloud security.

Some use cases and scenarios of how DSPM and CSPM work together are:

• You can use DSPM to discover and classify your sensitive or regulated data in your cloud environment, such as personal information, financial information, health information, etc. You can then use CSPM to check if your cloud resources that host or access this data are securely configured and comply with the relevant regulations or standards.
• You can use CSPM to detect any misconfigurations or policy violations in your cloud resources that could expose your data or compromise your security, such as open ports, insecure protocols, weak passwords, etc. You can then use DSPM to initiate appropriate actions to protect your data from unauthorized access or usage, such as tightening controls on resources hosting or accessing highly sensitive data.
• You can use DSPM to monitor and audit all data activity and events in your cloud environment, such as data creation, modification, deletion, access, usage, transfer, etc. You can then compare these events with the corresponding infrastructure events and identify any anomalies or malicious activities that could indicate a data breach or data leakage. The added context improves accuracy, reduces false positives, and can lower costs by focusing where stringent monitoring should be applied.

Laminar provides you with easy and seamless integration with various CSPM solutions such as Wiz and Orca. Laminar also provides you with a unified dashboard that shows you both your data security posture and the related assets on which your data resides, both known and unknown instances, along with public exposure configuration status.

Complement CASB with DSPM

CASB is a cloud security tool that helps you secure your cloud applications and services, focused primarily on SaaS apps. CASB solutions act as a gateway or a broker between your users and your cloud applications and services. CASB solutions monitor and control the access and usage of your cloud applications and services, and enforce security policies and rules.

DSPM provides data security capabilities, unlike CASB. While CASB helps you secure your SaaS applications and services, DSPM helps you secure your cloud data. DSPM solutions scan and monitor your cloud data and identify any sensitive or regulated data that could be at risk or non-compliant. It does this without regard to the data location – therefore it finds data in unknown or shadow stores.  Because CASB requires pre-configuration, it only secures known applications (and hence the data within).  DSPM solutions also help you remediate or prevent data security risks by orchestrating appropriate actions such as encryption, masking, tokenization, deletion, quarantine, etc.

By running both DSPM and CASB, Laminar helps you achieve comprehensive and holistic cloud security posture management. You can ensure that both your cloud applications and services and your cloud data are secure and compliant. You can also monitor and control the access and usage of your data in your cloud environment.

Some use cases and scenarios of how DSPM and CASB work together are:

• You can use DSPM to discover and classify your sensitive or regulated data in your cloud applications and services, such as email, cloud file shares (ex. SharePoint Online), CRM, ERP, etc. You can then use CASB to make sure your users and devices that access or use this data are properly authorized and authenticated.
• You can use CASB to detect any unauthorized or suspicious access or usage of your cloud applications and services that could expose your data or compromise your security, such as malware, phishing, and ransomware. You can then use DSPM to determine posture and then activate appropriate safeguards. 
• You can use DSPM to monitor data activity and events in your cloud applications and services, such as data creation, modification, deletion, access, usage, and transfer. You can then use CASB to correlate these events with the corresponding user and device events and identify any anomalies or malicious activities that could indicate a data breach or a data leakage.

Laminar provides you with easy and seamless integration with various CASB solutions such as McAfee MVISION Cloud, Bitglass, Netskope, and others. 

Enrich analysis via DSPM integrated with SIEM

Security Information and Event Management (SIEM), as the name implies, is an incident and event management tool that helps you collect and analyze security data from various sources. SIEM solutions aggregate and correlate security data from different sources such as logs, events, and alerts, and provide you with insights and intelligence on your security status and performance.

DSPM enriches the data security intelligence of SIEM. While SIEM helps you collect and analyze security data from various sources, DSPM’s byproduct (metadata) helps you to further analyze security info from your cloud data. This enriched context can inform analysis of the ‘importance’ of an event based on the sensitivity of the data at risk – allowing better prioritization of remediation steps.

By integrating DSPM with SIEM, you can achieve a comprehensive and holistic cloud security posture management system and simultaneously streamline policy optimization and incident response workflows. Some use cases and scenarios of how DSPM and SIEM work together are:

• You can use DSPM to discover and classify your sensitive or regulated data in your cloud environment, such as personal information, financial information, health information, etc. You can then use SIEM to collect and analyze the security data related to this data, such as logs, events, and alerts, and instruct the SIEM to focus on the most critical events (those involving sensitive data exposure!).
• You can use SIEM to look for any unauthorized or suspicious activity associated with your cloud data that could expose it or compromise your security, such as APTs, phishing, ransomware, etc. You can then use DSPM to initiate appropriate actions to protect your data from unauthorized access or usage.
• You can use DSPM to monitor data activity and events in your cloud environment, such as data creation, modification, deletion, access, usage, transfer, etc. You can then use SIEM to correlate these events with the corresponding security events and identify any anomalies or malicious activities that could indicate a data breach or data leakage.

Laminar provides you with easy and seamless integration with various SIEM solutions such as Splunk, Coralogix, Datadog, AWS Security Lake, and more. Laminar leverages the APIs of the SIEM platform or service for integration. Laminar also provides you with a unified dashboard that shows you both your data security posture and your security data intelligence (i.e. context) in one place.

Achieve sustainable security response with DSPM and SOAR integration

Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) is a cloud security tool that helps to automate and orchestrate security workflows and actions. SOAR solutions enable you to define and execute security playbooks that automate and coordinate various security tasks and responses across different tools and teams.

DSPM empowers the data security automation and orchestration of SOAR. By integrating DSPM with SOAR, you can better achieve agile data security posture management for your organization. You can ensure that both your security workflows and actions and your data security workflows and actions are automated and orchestrated, delivering a more responsive and scalable security architecture. This allows you to continuously safeguard data as your cloud usage expands, without drastic resource additions or cost increases.

Some use cases and scenarios of how DSPM and SOAR work together are:

• You can use DSPM to discover and classify your sensitive or regulated data in your cloud environment, such as personal information, financial information, health information, and so on. You can then use SOAR to define and execute security playbooks that automate and coordinate various data security tasks and responses across different tools and teams.
• SOAR can be used to automate multiple tasks and workstreams simultaneously which provides organizations with the ability to increase productivity and overall company efficiency. The goal is a more agile work environment that can scale up, SOAR provides the foundation to make that a reality. 
• You can use DSPM to monitor data activity and events in your cloud environment, to identify potential threats or policy violations. You can then use SOAR to define and execute security playbooks that automate and coordinate various data security tasks and responses across different tools and teams.

Laminar provides you with easy and seamless integration with various SOAR solutions such as Palo Alto Cortex XSOAR, Rapid7 InsightConnect, IBM Resilient, and more. Laminar leverages the native capabilities of the cloud platform or service for integration. 

How to integrate DSPM with other cloud security solutions

DSPM must also integrate with Identity Management and IdPs, such as Okta, Key/Secrets Management, such as AWS KMS, and Vulnerability Management, such as Qualys, Tenable, etc. These tools offer various cloud security aspects like identity and access management, encryption and key management, and vulnerability management. DSPM supplements these solutions by providing data awareness and protection, leveraging APIs or SDKs for seamless integration.

Okta manages and secures users and devices in your cloud environment, while DSPM’s integration allows data discovery, granular classification, and the application of precise access policies. AWS KMS aids in encrypting data within your AWS environment, and when coupled with DSPM, it can classify sensitive data and monitor encryption events. Qualys and Tenable identify vulnerabilities in your cloud environment, and their integration with DSPM facilitates data risk assessment based on vulnerability status. Laminar simplifies the integration process with these solutions, offering a unified dashboard that showcases your data security posture and other cloud security aspects in one place.

Conclusion

Leveraging DSPM with other cloud security tools is a vital step to ensure complete cloud security. You should consider the features, benefits, and integration options of different DSPM solutions and other cloud security tools, and compare them based on your specific needs and goals. Based on our comparison, we believe that Laminar is the best choice for cloud data security integration. Laminar provides you with:

• A comprehensive and powerful set of features and capabilities that cover all aspects of cloud data security.
• A user-friendly and intuitive interface that makes it easy to use and manage your cloud data security.
• A flexible and scalable architecture that adapts to your changing needs and growth.
• A reliable and secure platform that protects your data and privacy.
• A transparent and fair pricing model that suits your budget and needs.
• An easy and seamless integration with various cloud security tools such as CSPM, CASB, SIEM, SOAR, IDP, KM, and VM. 

If you want to learn more about Laminar’s DSPM solution and how Laminar can help you integrate your cloud data security stack with other cloud security tools, we invite you to try out our free trial or request a demo today. You will be amazed by the results.

Additional FAQs on DSPM integration with security tools

• What are the key challenges in integrating DSPM with other security tools?

The integration of DSPM with other tools may require careful planning and configuration. Challenges include ensuring data consistency across solutions, defining clear data security policies, and setting up seamless data flow between DSPM, CSPM, CASB, SIEM, and SOAR to maximize security effectiveness.

• What are use cases where integrating DSPM with CSPM, CASB, SIEM, SOAR, and other solutions has improved cloud security?

Use cases include real-time threat detection and response, automated incident investigation, compliance monitoring, and data protection. For example, the combination of DSPM with SIEM allows for identification of obscure threats that may go unnoticed until too late, and automated responses to block threats, and enhance overall cloud security.

• How does integrating DSPM with cloud security tools assist in meeting regulatory compliance requirements?

Integrating DSPM with cloud security tools ensures continuous monitoring of data security controls, provides evidence to demonstrate compliance with regulations such as GDPR, HIPAA, and SOC 2. It helps in auditing and reporting on data security practices.

• How does the integration of DSPM with SOAR tools impact incident response times and effectiveness?

Integrating DSPM with SOAR enables rapid response to data security incidents by automating incident detection and mitigation. This integration significantly reduces response times, minimizing potential damage and enhancing overall incident response effectiveness.

• How can the integration of DSPM with other cloud security tools benefit IT risk management and cloud architecture?

By integrating DSPM with tools like CSPM, CASB, SIEM, and SOAR, cloud architects can proactively manage and mitigate security risks. This integration ensures that data security considerations are an integral part of the cloud architecture, reducing vulnerabilities and ensuring regulatory compliance.