By Katrina Thompson

There’s data, and then there’s sensitive data. While “data” is generated willy-nilly as a byproduct of virtually everything we do online, sensitive data is generated for a purpose and treated differently – or at least it should be.

However, aside from the few SOC insiders who can identify which types of assets qualify as “sensitive data” - which can open up a rabbit hole the size of a compliance framework – most people may not be able to identify which is which. To be fair, they’re not paid to; they’re only paid to use the data, maximize it, leverage it, send it, and use it in reports to drive the business. Oh, and to save it in the right spot, not save it in any unprotected spots, not accidentally mis-send or misuse it, not share it with anyone besides those who are authorized to view this particular subset of sensitive data, and so on.

Employees almost need to become data classification experts (and compliance experts, and PII experts...) to know off-hand which assets are the most sensitive to the enterprise. This matters because those same employees handle this sensitive information every day, and aside from everyone’s “best guess” and whatever policies a company may have in place, there is still a wide margin for error.

Data Security Policy Management (DSPM) takes that burden off the backs of employees and puts it squarely on the shoulders of technology and ‘those few SOC insiders’ who really know what they are doing. It knows which assets are most sensitive based on what you tell it and any industry-standard compliance frameworks that might apply. It follows that data around to make sure some employee somewhere isn’t doing something bad with it. It also gives you a map of where that data is, where it is going, and who’s touched it along the way, so you’re in the loop.

That’s handling sensitive data differently. Here’s how DSPM does it.

Sensitive Data Has an Uphill Battle

Sensitive data today is at a critical disadvantage, and that handicap only widens in the cloud. Cloud environments are notoriously and elusively complex. Now, factor in the estimate that around 98% of all enterprises are now operating in multi-cloud environments, and that complexity just compounds.

And then there’s data, just floating around, in the hands of those who have maybe received an SAT course or two and can probably spot a phishing scam. Probably. It’s not saying that today’s users aren’t fit for the job, but until sensitive data education becomes ubiquitous (which it probably won’t), there are countless chances every day of someone taking some piece of critical information and making a mistake. It’s the CS manager who downloads customer files from the CRM onto their personal laptop over the weekend for a big report on Monday. It’s someone who pings a GitHub login to an employee over Slack. It’s the sports watch company that just teamed up with a local healthcare organization and now needs to realize that a lot of their stored customer data now counts as PHI as well as PII – and is most likely subject to HIPAA. And it’s the ground-level employees who continue with business as usual because they didn’t know. And besides those at the tip of the security spear, who would?

With so much going on, and in complex hybrid, cloud, multi-cloud, remote, and on-premises environments no less (to say nothing of the world of IoT, APIs, and applications), there are some critical pieces of sensitive data protection that need to be addressed. DSPM addresses them.

DSPM Automates Complex Cloud Data Security

What you want most in a confusing multi-cloud (or just any cloud) environment is the ability to see where your data is at all times. It’s transparency and maybe a little bit of simplicity. DSPM offers security teams a way to look across those distributed environments and still get a centralized view of their data, along with a large measure of control. DSPM uses automation to continuously assess an organization’s data security posture and locate sensitive data assets across complex architectures.

With data lineage, a key feature of DSPM, practitioners can see where that piece of information originated (was it a secured repository) and what has happened since that authorized user downloaded it (are they copying/pasting to a secure messaging app?). The more you know, the more you can intervene.

DSPM Keeps Your Sensitive Data Compliant

The liability of sensitive data is that it could get you in a lot of trouble with compliance authorities if it leaks out. That means hefty fines, reputational damage, probable loss of customer trust and therefore business, and so on. Yet, in a business culture that places a high value on having available, usable data (for optimization purposes), it can be tough to maintain a tight sense of control over your future compliance. You’ve just got to implement policies and hope nobody makes a mistake.

Since that’s not likely, and because the traditional method of protecting sensitive data falls short – securing only the architecture that houses the data, not the data itself – another solution is needed. DSPM helps you cover your compliance bases by (automatically):

1. Finding all compliance-sensitive documents, files, and assets.
2. Classifying them by data sensitivity.
3. Monitoring all activities done with said data.
4. Ensuring the security configurations you have in place are enough to keep that sensitive data in line with compliance regulations.
   
   

DSPM Protects Sensitive Data Against Insider Attacks

Sometimes, even when proper identity and access management policies are in place, and everybody follows the rules, things can still go drastically wrong. Those with the ability to do both (follow rules and mess up your enterprise) are known as malicious insiders. Data from the 2024 Insider Threat Report indicates that 87% of organizations experienced an insider attack this year, compared to only 60% the year before. Interestingly, per the same report, the number one driver of increased insider attacks was complex IT environments.

Insider threats are historically hard to catch because, at least in the beginning stages of an attack, they’re not doing anything they’re not allowed to do. They might have full access to this or that cloud database or this or that application. Everything might look above board and truly be so – until they begin their first intentional wrong turn.

DSPM makes sure that when a malicious insider puts a foot wrong, you know it. By monitoring user access patterns and being fully informed of the proper data sensitivity policies, DSPM tools can spot uncanny anomalies and identify instances of unauthorized behavior – even if the access was authorized. And, of course, DSPM can notify you of instances of unauthorized access attempts, too, if the criminal is a bit more obtuse.

DSPM: A Last Line of Defense for Sensitive Data

DSPM provides something of a comprehensive security strategy for an organization’s sensitive assets, specifically. Put simply, “DSPM solutions can identify an organization's sensitive information, classify data, evaluate its security posture, and offer guidance to remediate its vulnerabilities,” as noted by data security firm Cyberhaven.

Sensitive data is always going to be a target, and in order to keep the wheels of business moving, someone is always going to have access to it sometime (or else what’s the point). Try as we may to secure data storage spaces, cloud environments, and various architectures with our best security assets; threat actors make a living out of figuring out our defenses and defying them. However, at some point, they cannot hide their nefarious actions – or, at least, their nefarious actions will take place regardless of how well they’re hiding them.

Assuming those malicious deeds involve sensitive data (which only makes sense), DSPM has the automated capabilities to catch them. Because it tracks and monitors the assets themselves, it proves an extraordinarily effective tool for following data movement in complex places and keeping sensitive data where it needs to be—and nowhere else.

An ardent believer in personal data privacy and the technology behind it, Katrina Thompson is a freelance writer leaning into encryption, data privacy legislation, and the intersection of information technology and human rights. She has written for Bora, Venafi, Tripwire, and many oth

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