How Sentra is Redefining Data Security at Black Hat 2025

We knew we were on a hot streak, and now it’s official.

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Sentra has been named one of CRN’s 10 Hottest Cybersecurity Startups of 2025. This recognition is a direct reflection of our commitment to redefining data security for the cloud and AI era, and of the growing trust forward-thinking enterprises are placing in our unique approach.

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This milestone is more than just an award. It shows our relentless drive to protect modern data systems and gives us a chance to thank our customers, partners, and the Sentra team whose creativity and determination keep pushing us ahead.

The Market Forces Fueling Sentra’s Momentum

Cybersecurity is undergoing major changes. With 94% of organizations worldwide now relying on cloud technologies, the rapid growth of cloud-based data and the rise of AI agents have made security both more urgent and more complicated. These shifts are creating demands for platforms that combine unified data security posture management (DSPM) with fast data detection and response (DDR).

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Industry data highlights this trend: over 73% of enterprise security operations centers are now using AI for real-time threat detection, leading to a 41% drop in breach containment time. The global cybersecurity market is growing rapidly, estimated to reach $227.6 billion in 2025, fueled by the need to break down barriers between data discovery, classification, and incident response 2025 cybersecurity market insights. In 2025, organizations will spend about 10% more on cyber defenses, which will only increase the demand for new solutions.

Why Recognition by CRN Matters and What It Means

Landing a place on CRN’s 10 Hottest Cybersecurity Startups of 2025 is more than publicity for Sentra. It signals we truly meet the moment. Our rise isn’t just about new features; it’s about helping security teams tackle the growing risks posed by AI and cloud data head-on. This recognition follows our mention as a CRN 2024 Stellar Startup, a sign of steady innovation and mounting interest from analysts and enterprises alike.

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Being on CRN’s list means customers, partners, and investors value Sentra’s straightforward, agentless data protection that helps organizations work faster and with more certainty.

Innovation Where It Matters: Sentra’s Edge in Data and AI Security

Sentra stands out for its practical approach to solving urgent security problems, including:

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• Agentless, multi-cloud coverage: Sentra identifies and classifies sensitive data and AI agents across cloud, SaaS, and on-premises environments without any agents or hidden gaps.
• Integrated DSPM + DDR: We go further than monitoring posture by automatically investigating incidents and responding, so security teams can act quickly on why DSPM+DDR matters.
• AI-driven advancements: Features like domain-specific AI Classifiers for Unstructure advanced AI classification leveraging SLMs, Data Security for AI Agents and Microsoft M365 Copilot help customers stay in control as they adopt new technologies Sentra’s AI-powered innovation.

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With new attack surfaces popping up all the time, from prompt injection to autonomous agent drift, Sentra’s architecture is built to handle the world of AI.

A Platform Approach That Outpaces the Competition

There are plenty of startups aiming to tackle AI, cloud, and data security challenges. Companies like 7AI, Reco, Exaforce, and Noma Security have been in the news for their funding rounds and targeted solutions. Still, very few offer the kind of unified coverage that sets Sentra apart.

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Most competitors stick to either monitoring SaaS agents or reducing SOC alerts. Sentra does more by providing both agentless multi-cloud DSPM and built-in DDR. This gives organizations visibility, context, and the power to act in one platform. With features like Data Security for AI Agents, Sentra helps enterprises go beyond managing alerts by automating meaningful steps to defend sensitive data everywhere.

Thanks to Our Community and What’s Next

This honor belongs first and foremost to our community: customers breaking new ground in data security, partners building solutions alongside us, and a team with a clear goal to lead the industry.

If you haven’t tried Sentra yet, now’s a great time to see what we can do for your cloud and AI data security program. Find out why we’re at the forefront: schedule a personalized demo or read CRN’s full 2025 list for more insight.

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Conclusion

Being named one of CRN’s hottest cybersecurity startups isn’t just a milestone. It pushes us forward toward our vision - data security that truly enables innovation. The market is changing fast, but Sentra’s focus on meaningful security results hasn't wavered.

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Thank you to our customers, partners, investors, and team for your ongoing trust and teamwork. As AI and cloud technology shape the future, Sentra is ready to help organizations move confidently, securely, and quickly.

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By 2026, American data privacy will look very different as a wave of new state laws redefines what it means to protect sensitive information. Organizations face a regulatory maze: more than 20 states will soon require not only “reasonable security” but also Data Protection Impact Assessments (DPIAs), explicit limits on data collection, and, in some cases, detailed data inventories. These requirements are quickly becoming standard, and ignoring them simply isn’t an option. The risk of penalties and enforcement actions is climbing fast.

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But through all these changes, one major question remains: How can any organization comply if it doesn’t even know where its most sensitive data is? Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) has become the solution, making data visibility and automation central for meeting ongoing compliance needs.

Mapping the New Wave of State Privacy Mandates

Several state privacy laws going into effect in 2025 and 2026 are raising the stakes for compliance. Kentucky, Indiana, and Rhode Island’s new laws, effective January 1, 2026, require both security measures and DPIAs for handling high-risk or sensitive data. Minnesota’s law stands out even more: it moves past earlier vague “reasonable” security language and mandates comprehensive data inventories.

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Other key states include Minnesota, which explicitly requires data inventories, Maryland with strict data minimization rules, and Tennessee, which gives organizations an affirmative defense if they’ve adopted a NIST-aligned privacy program. These requirements mean organizations now need to track what data they collect, know exactly where it’s stored, and show evidence of compliance when asked. If your organization operates in more than one state, keeping up with this web of laws will soon become impossible without dedicated solutions (US consumer privacy laws 2025 update).

Why Data Visibility is Now Foundational to Compliance

To meet DPIA, minimization, and security safeguard rules, you need full visibility into where sensitive or regulated data lives - and how it moves across your environment. Recent privacy laws are moving closer to GDPR-like standards, with DPIAs required not only for biometric data but also for broad categories like targeted advertising and profiling. Minnesota leads with its clear requirement for full data inventories, setting the standard that you can’t prove compliance unless you understand your data (US cybersecurity and data privacy review and outlook 2025).

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This shift puts DSPM front and center: you now need ongoing discovery and classification of your entire sensitive data footprint. Without a strong data foundation, organizations will find it hard to complete DPIAs, handle audits, or defend themselves in investigations.

Automation: The Only Viable Path for Assessment and Audit Readiness

State privacy rules are getting more complicated, and many enforcement authorities are shortening or removing 'right-to-cure' periods. That means manual compliance simply won’t keep up. Automation is now the only way to manage compliance as regulations tighten (5 trends to watch: 2025 US data privacy & cybersecurity).

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With DSPM and automation, organizations get ongoing discovery, real-time data classification, and instant evidence collection - all required for fast DPIAs and responsive audits. For companies facing regulators or preparing for multi-state oversight, this means you already have the proof and documentation you need. Relying on spreadsheets or one-time assessments at this point only increases your risk.

Sentra: Your Strategic Bridge to Privacy Law Compliance

Sentra’s DSPM platform is built to tackle these expanding privacy law requirements. The agentless platform covers AWS, Azure, GCP, SaaS, and hybrid environments, removing both visibility gaps and the hassle found in older solutions (Sentra: DSPM for compliance use cases).

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With continuous, automated discovery and data classification, you always know exactly where your sensitive data is, how it moves, and how it’s being protected. Sentra’s integrated Data Detection & Response (DDR) catches and fixes risks or policy violations early, closing gaps before regulators - or attackers - can take advantage (Sensitive data exposure insight). Combined with clear reporting and on-demand audit documentation, Sentra helps you meet new state privacy laws and stay audit-ready, even as your business or data needs change.

Conclusion

The arrival of new state privacy laws in 2025 and 2026 is changing how organizations must handle sensitive data. Security safeguards, DPIAs, minimization, and full inventories are now required - not just nice-to-have.

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DSPM is now a compliance must-have. Without complete data visibility and automation, following the web of state rules isn’t difficult - it’s impossible. Sentra’s agentless, multi-cloud platform keeps your organization continuously informed, giving compliance, security, and privacy teams the control they need to keep up with new regulations.

Want to see how your organization stacks up for 2026 laws? Book a DSPM Compliance Readiness Assessment or check out Sentra’s automated DPIA tools today.

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Cloud adoption and the explosion of data have boosted business agility, but they’ve also created new headaches for security teams. As companies move sensitive information into multi-cloud and hybrid environments, old security models start to break down. Shuffling data for scanning and classification adds risk, piles on regulatory complexity, and drives up operational costs.

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Zero Data Movement (ZDM) offers a new architectural approach, reshaping how advanced Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) platforms provide visibility, protection, and compliance. This post breaks down what makes ZDM unique, why it matters for security-focused enterprises, and how Sentra provides an innovative agentless and scalable design that is genuinely a zero data movement DSPM .

Defining Zero Data Movement Architecture

Zero Data Movement (ZDM) sets a new standard in data security. The premise is straightforward: sensitive data should stay in its original environment for security analysis, monitoring, and enforcement. Older models require copying, exporting, or centralizing data to scan it, while ZDM ensures that all security actions happen directly where data resides.

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ZDM removes egress risk -shrinking the attack surface and reducing regulatory issues. For organizations juggling large cloud deployments and tight data residency rules, ZDM isn’t just an improvement - it's essential. Groups like the Cloud Security Alliance and new privacy regulations are moving the industry toward designs that build in privacy and non-stop protection.

Risks of Data Movement: Compliance, Cost, and Egress Exposure

Every time data is copied, exported, or streamed out of its native environment, new risks arise. Data movement creates challenges such as:

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• Egress risk: Data at rest or in transit outside its original environment  increases risk of breach, especially as those environments may be less secure.
• Compliance and regulatory exposure: Moving data across borders or different clouds can break geo-fencing and privacy controls, leading to potential violations and steep fines.
• Loss of context and control: Scattered data makes it harder to monitor everything, leaving gaps in visibility.
• Rising total cost of ownership (TCO): Scanning and classification can incur heavy cloud compute costs - so efficiency matters.  Exporting or storing data, especially shadow data, drives up storage, egress, and compliance costs as well.

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As more businesses rely on data, moving it unnecessarily only increases the risk - especially with fast-changing cloud regulations.

Legacy and Competitor Gaps: Why Data Movement Still Happens

Not every security vendor practices true zero data movement, and the differences are notable. Products from Cyera, Securiti, or older platforms still require temporary data exporting or duplication for analysis. This might offer a quick setup, but it exposes users to egress risks, insider threats, and compliance gaps - problems that are worse in regulated fields.

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Competitors like Cyera often rely on shortcuts that fall short of ZDM’s requirements. Securiti and similar providers depend on connectors, API snapshots, or central data lakes, each adding potential risks and spreading data further than necessary. With ZDM, security operations like monitoring and classification happen entirely locally, removing the need to trust external storage or aggregation. For more detail on how data movement drives up risk.

The Business Value of Zero Data Movement DSPM

Zero data movement DSPM changes the equation for businesses:

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• Designed for compliance: Data remains within controlled environments, shrinking audit requirements and reducing breach likelihood.
• Lower TCO and better efficiency: Eliminates hidden expenses from extra storage, duplicate assets, and exporting to external platforms.
• Regulatory clarity and privacy: Supports data sovereignty, cross-border rules, and new zero trust frameworks with an egress-free approach.

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Sentra’s agentless, cloud-native DSPM provides these benefits by ensuring sensitive data is never moved or copied. And Sentra delivers these benefits at scale - across multi-petabyte enterprise environments - without the performance and cost tradeoffs others suffer from. Real scenarios show the results: financial firms keep audit trails without data ever leaving allowed regions. Healthcare providers safeguard PHI at its source. Global SaaS companies secure customer data at scale, cost-effectively while meeting regional rules.

Future-Proofing Data Security: ZDM as the New Standard

With data volumes expected to hit 181 zettabytes in 2025, older protection methods that rely on moving data can’t keep up. Zero data movement architecture meets today's security demands and supports zero trust, metadata-driven access, and privacy-first strategies for the future.

Companies wanting to avoid dead ends should pick solutions that offer unified discovery, classification and policy enforcement without egress risk. Sentra’s ZDM architecture makes this possible, allowing organizations to analyze and protect information where it lives, at cloud speed and scale.

Conclusion

Zero Data Movement is more than a technical detail - it's a new architectural standard for any organization serious about risk control, compliance, and efficiency. As data grows and regulations become stricter, the old habits of moving, copying, or centralizing sensitive data will no longer suffice.

Sentra stands out by delivering a zero data movement DSPMplatform that's agentless, real-time, and truly multicloud. For security leaders determined to cut egress risk, lower compliance spending, and get ahead in privacy, ZDM is the clear path forward.

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