Enable Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) for Your Entire Data Estate

Enterprises face growing risks and regulatory requirements alongside an increasingly complex data estate. Relying on endpoint or user-focused security practices may fall short of adequately preventing a data breach.

IBM’s latest Cost of a Data Breach report found that the average cost of a breach was US$4.8 million in 2024, a 10% rise over 2023. Additionally, IBM found that 1 in 3 data breaches involved shadow data, highlighting the necessity of data-focused security practices.

Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) is a data security practice focusing on securing data rather than endpoints and users. While not intended to replace other security methodologies, DSPM supplements and enhances your overall posture.

So, let’s explore how the modern IT ecosystem has changed, why DSPM is so important, and how you can better protect your data.

A Quick Overview of Data Security Posture Management (DSPM)

Before diving deeper, what exactly is DSPM? We previously explored the fact that DSPM is a data-focused security methodology that leverages several key technologies to protect company data.

When implemented correctly, data throughout the enterprise is found, classified, and protected under overarching data protection policies. Additionally, ongoing risk assessments and recommendations are conducted that hone in on data and its possible vulnerabilities rather than a more overarching risk assessment.

DSPM aims to leverage the right platforms and processes to bolster enterprise security and maintain compliance with applicable regulatory requirements. So, let’s dive deeper into DSPM; having the right technologies in place is critical to reaping the possible benefits.

The Evolving Landscape of Enterprise Data

Modern enterprises face an increasingly complex data landscape in exchange for leveraging new systems and better utilizing the data estate. Compared to previous decades, enterprise data can now live on mainframes, cloud platforms, and in-house and hybrid systems.

Facing this current complexity, how can enterprises stay on top of where data resides and its classification and protection requirements? DSPM aims to leverage data discovery and classification alongside security policies to find and protect every byte in the estate.

Enterprises Require DSPM Across All Environments

While DSPM can mature security and compliance initiatives, some platforms may struggle to identify and work with your entire data estate. That’s why Inventa by 1touch was designed to work with every environment you use rather than leaving some of them out of your DSPM.

The right platform should be able to secure all data in the estate in several key ways:

• Discovery throughout cloud and on-premise: Data discovery is at the heart of an overall DSPM initiative. This initial step in the process must enable continuous scanning of cloud, on-premise, and hybrid environments to identify all data in the ecosystem.
• Integrate mainframes: Mainframes are still commonly found throughout enterprise systems and have become crucial as AI and machine learning use cases have emerged. However, many data discovery platforms can fall short when it comes to mainframes — it’s critical that mainframes are included in your DSPM initiatives.
• Create unified data security: DSPM must create a unified data security strategy throughout the organization rather than creating different siloed approaches for each environment. Without being unified, DSPM will likely struggle to provide the benefits you expect.
• Manage data in motion: Automatically discover data sources and track flows for all data flowing through your systems.

Once implemented, DSPM, powered by an effective platform, will be ready to scan every byte of data to prevent data breaches and enhance compliance.

Critical Business Benefits of Enterprise DSPM

Why is implementing new platforms and processes for DSPM worth the investment? We’ll explore some key benefits that DSPM can bring to the organization once effectively implemented.

Mitigate and Minimize Risk

One of the most meaningful, immediately valuable benefits of DSPM is mitigating and minimizing the possible impact of data-related risks. Taking a data-centric approach to security addresses vulnerabilities that may remain intact when relying on other methods.

Ongoing discovery and classification also reduce or eliminate shadow data outside of your data protection policies and can enable a costly data breach.

Preventing even one data breach will likely pay for the upfront investments necessary to develop and implement your DSPM practices when considering the cost of a data breach. From there, you’re well into a positive ROI that keeps increasing.

Streamline Compliance and Reporting

The volume of regulatory requirements enterprises face has skyrocketed in the past decade. Data is at the heart of many of these requirements, whether you must comply with HIPAA, GDPR, SOC2, or similar regional requirements.

Similarly, compliance reporting is often an integral aspect of regulatory compliance. While the specifics vary, you’ll likely need to submit regular reports and documentation that demonstrate you’re fully maintaining compliance.

Worthwhile DSPM platforms will also have robust reporting capabilities, including the on-demand reports you need and audit trails that demonstrate the total life cycle of your data. You’ll be ready to generate any necessary reports while having everything necessary to prove compliance during an audit.

Respond to Incidents Faster

Most enterprises have already invested in incident response planning to help teams rapidly react to a possible data breach before it has a devastating impact. Once an incident is detected, the time it takes to respond can make the difference between thousands and millions of dollars.

How does DSPM come into play? Teams will know where data lives based on classification. So, once an intrusion is detected, teams can bolster data storage systems in various ways to prevent malicious access.

Additionally, DSPM platforms will create audit logs that can be critical in post-incident review and compliance filings. This can help with root cause analysis to further enhance security and response plans for the future.

Create a Unified Approach to DSPM with Inventa by 1touch

DSPM takes a new approach to security and compliance by focusing on the data rather than endpoints and users accessing it. However, you don’t have to choose which route to go, as DSPM can supplement your security practices.

Unfortunately, some DSPM platforms can work with some of your environments — but not all of them. This creates a blind spot in your security and can have disastrous consequences should a breach occur.

That’s why 1touch developed Inventa to work with data across every environment. Inventa continuously scans cloud, hybrid, on-premise, and mainframe environments to identify and classify data so it can be protected.

Is it time to mature your data security practices? Contact us today to see our platform in action and discover how it can help enterprises better protect their data estate.

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