By PJ Bradley
Each organization has its own needs, desires, and capabilities when it comes to building a cybersecurity strategy. Your organization’s individual approach depends on a wide range of factors, both internal and external. One of the most important parts of developing an effective cybersecurity strategy is understanding what tools and practices will be the most helpful toward achieving your security goals.
Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) and Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) are two approaches to cloud security that organizations can use to protect against threats and maintain compliance with regulations. While they are both designed to account for the growth of cloud environments and evolving threat trends, their strategies also differ in many ways.
Understanding DSPM and CSPM
Understanding the differences between the two approaches is crucial to determining which strategy would work best for your organization. DSPM and CSPM each have distinct goals, functions, and methods that may be more or less helpful for certain organizations.
About DSPM
DSPM is a data-driven approach to cloud security, focused mainly on protecting sensitive data that is not stored on-premises. Many organizations store and handle vast amounts of valuable data. With the increasing popularity of cloud services, data is more spread out than ever. DSPM tools aim to help organizations protect data across their entire cloud environment, including Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) platforms.
The functions and capabilities of DSPM tools include the discovery, identification, classification, and protection of sensitive data across all cloud platforms. DSPM offers visibility into where data is stored in the cloud and “flags risks like misconfigurations or vulnerabilities that could lead to data exposure.” It also uses real-time monitoring and automation to streamline risk mitigation and incident response processes. By focusing on the data itself, DSPM more effectively protects against data breaches and leaks.
About CSPM
On the other hand, CSPM is an approach that prioritizes securing cloud infrastructure against risks. CSPM tools provide security teams visibility into cloud setups and continuously monitor for misconfigurations, problems with regulatory compliance, and threats to the cloud environment. They help organizations align their cloud setups with regulations and standards like the National Institute of Standards and Technology Cybersecurity Framework (NIST CSF) or the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GPDR).
Rather than addressing specific issues like standalone data loss prevention or endpoint protection solutions, CSPM tools offer visibility into the entire cloud environment. They look at configurations, access controls, and security policies to ensure that they are secure and aligned with regulatory requirements.
Deciding Between DSPM and CSPM
In order to determine whether DSPM or CSPM is the right move for your organization, there are a number of factors to consider. It is essential to understand your organization’s security priorities to ensure that the approach you choose aligns with your goals. If your main goal for your security strategy is to secure cloud infrastructure, then CSPM may be better. If your organization is more concerned with protecting sensitive and valuable data, then DSPM might be your best choice.
Organizations can benefit from CSPM if they have a variety of cloud assets to protect. CSPM helps provide visibility into the entire cloud environment and monitor all cloud platforms for risks. These tools include a range of functions to make it easier for organizations to discover, monitor, and protect their entire cloud environments.
In contrast, DSPM may be the better option for organizations with large volumes of sensitive and vulnerable data to protect. DSPM tools help organizations streamline data protection processes like data discovery, classification, and protection across all cloud platforms. They provide insight into not only the location of data but also aspects of data access and governance.
Combining DSPM and CSPM
Many organizations have cloud environments and data landscapes that would best be secured with a combination of DSPM and CSPM strategies. Protecting your organization’s data against threats of all kinds may require an approach that incorporates both DSPM and CSPM tools, addressing data security at both data-focused and infrastructure levels. By using these two approaches in conjunction with each other, organizations can build a holistic security strategy that enables security teams to find and mitigate risks proactively.
Organizations in heavily regulated industries—like financial services, healthcare, legal, and government institutions—can significantly benefit from the application of both approaches to comprehensively protect their assets and resources while maintaining continuous compliance with applicable regulations and standards. Using layers of protection that prevent risks and provide visibility into both data and cloud infrastructure, organizations can ensure that risks and vulnerabilities are effectively addressed.
Conclusion
While only one is centered on data protection, both DSPM and CSPM can contribute to data security. The first step to determining which is better for your organization is understanding these two approaches to cloud security, their differences, and their distinct benefits and methods. Many organizations may, in fact, reap more advantages from integrating both DSPM and CSPM tools into their security strategies to create a more comprehensive defense and ensure compliance with regulations and standards.
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.
