We find ourselves in interesting times. Enterprise cloud transformations have given rise to innovative cloud security technologies that are running at a pace even seasoned security leaders find head-spinning. As security professionals grapple with these evolving dynamics, they face a predicament of conflicting priorities that directly impact budget decisions.
So much innovation and possibilities, yet, the economic climate is demanding consolidation, simplification, and yes, budget cuts. So, how do you navigate this tricky balancing act? On one hand, you need to close those critical cybersecurity gaps, and on the other, you must embrace new technology to innovate and stay competitive. To add a touch more complexity, there’s the issue of CIOs suffering from "change fatigue." According to Gartner, this fatigue manifests as CIOs hesitate to invest in new projects and initiatives, pushing a portion of 2023's IT spending into 2024, a trend that is likely to continue into 2025. CIOs are prioritizing cost control, efficiencies, and automation, while scaling back those long IT projects that take ages to show returns.
Cloud Security - A Top Investment
PwC suggests that cloud security is one of the top investment areas for 2024. The cloud's complex landscape, often poorly managed, presents a significant challenge. Astoundingly, 97% of organizations have gaps in their cloud risk management plans. The cloud security arena is nothing short of a maze that is difficult to navigate, driving enterprises towards vendor consolidation in an effort to reduce complexity, drive greater predictability and achieve positive ROI quickly.
The cloud data security challenge is far from being solved, and this is precisely why the demand for Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) solutions is on the rise. DSPM shines a light on the entire multi-cloud estate by bringing in the data context. With easy integrations, DSPM enriches the entire cloud security stack, driving more operational efficiencies as a result of accurate data risk quantification and prioritization. By proactively reducing the data attack surface on an ongoing basis, DSPM plays a role in reducing the overall risk profile of the organization.
DSPM's Role in Supporting C-Suite Challenges
Sometimes amid economic uncertainty and regulatory complexities, taking a comprehensive and granular approach to prioritize data risks can greatly enhance your 2024 cybersecurity investments.
DSPM plays a vital role in addressing the intricate challenges faced by CISOs and their teams. By ensuring the correct security posture for sensitive data, DSPM brings a new level of clarity and control to data security, making it an indispensable tool for navigating the complex data risk landscape. DSPM enables CISOs to make informed decisions and stay one step ahead of evolving threats, even in the face of uncertainty.
Let's break it down and bottom line why DSPM should have a spot in your 2024 budget:
- DSPM isn't just a technology; it's a proactive and strategic approach that empowers you to harness the full potential of your cloud data while having a clear prioritized view of your most critical data risks that will impact remediation efficiency and accurate assessment of your organization’s overall risk profile.
- Reduce Cloud Storage Costs via the detection and elimination of unused data, and drive up operational efficiency from targeted and prioritized remediation efforts that focus on the critical data risks that matter.
- Cloud Data Visibility comes from DSPM providing security leaders with a crystal-clear view of their organization's most critical data risks. It offers unmatched visibility into sensitive data across multi-cloud environments, ensuring that no sensitive data remains undiscovered. The depth and breadth of data classification provides enterprises with a solid foundation to benefit from multiple use case scenarios spanning DLP, data access governance, data privacy and compliance, and cloud security enrichment.
- Manage & Monitor Risk Proactively: Thanks to its ability to understand data context, DSPM offers accurate and prioritized data risk scores. It's about embracing the intricate details within larger multi-cloud environments that enable security professionals to make well-informed decisions. Adding the layer of data sensitivity, with its nuanced scoring, enriches this context even further. DSPM tools excel at recognizing vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and policy violations. This empowers organizations to address these issues before they escalate into incidents.
- Regulatory Compliance undertakings to abide by data protection regulations, becomes simplified with DSPM, helping organizations steer clear of hefty penalties. Security teams can align their data security practices with industry-specific data regulations and standards. Sentra assesses how your data security posture stacks up against standard compliance and security frameworks your organization needs to comply with.
- Sentra's agentless DSPM platform offers quick setup, rapid ROI, and seamless integration with your existing cloud security tools. It deploys effortlessly in your multi-cloud environment within minutes, providing valuable insights from day one. DSPM enhances your security stack, collaborating with CSPMs, CNAPPs, and CWPPs to prioritize data risks based on data sensitivity and security posture. It ensures data catalog accuracy and completeness, supports data backup, and aids SIEMs and Security Lakes in threat detection. DSPM also empowers Identity Providers for precise access control and bolsters detection and access workflows by tagging data-based cloud workloads, optimizing data management, compliance, and efficiency
The Path Forward
2024 is approaching fast, and DSPM is an investment in long-term resilience against the ever-evolving data risk landscape. In planning 2024's cybersecurity budget, it's essential to find a balance between simplification, innovation and cost reduction. DSPM plays an important part in this intricate budgeting dance and stands ready to play its part.
