In the past decade, the volume, variety, and velocity of data in enterprise estates has increased exponentially. Along with it, there has been an explosion in the accessibility of that data. In response, Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) emerged, offering visibility and governance for data security and compliance. Championed by analysts like Gartner, DSPM sought to address gaps in traditional security frameworks, helping enterprises identify and manage vulnerabilities.
While DSPM tools have proven valuable in addressing foundational security challenges, they are no longer sufficient in today’s complex threat landscape. Attackers are leveraging advanced techniques, including weaponized DarkAI (AI tools adopted for malicious purposes, like automated vulnerability discovery), to ratchet up the efficacy and volume of their attacks. To secure their data, enterprises need more than visibility and monitoring—they require a defense-in-depth strategy built around proactive prevention and remediation capabilities.
The Past and Present of DSPM
Gartner introduced DSPM in 2022 as a critical component of modern security strategies, emphasizing the need for comprehensive visibility into data flows, security posture, and compliance. The promise was clear: it would empower organizations to discover, classify, and secure sensitive data across hybrid and multi-cloud environments, ensuring compliance with regulations like GDPR, HIPAA, and CCPA.
However, the DSPM market’s promise was disrupted by constant acquisitions of several promising startups in the space by larger platform-based cybersecurity providers:
- Dig Security was acquired by Palo Alto Networks, integrating its data visibility features into Palo Alto’s Cloud-Native Application Protection Platform (CNAPP) offering.
- Flow Security joined CrowdStrike’s broader data security portfolio.
- Laminar joined Rubrik, a storage recovery & backup provider.
These acquisitions reflect a consolidation trend that narrows DSPM’s scope. Instead of evolving into comprehensive solutions, many became feature sets within larger platforms, losing their standalone value. As with many startup acquisitions, the initial aim and trajectory of the technology were curtailed to fit the broader needs of the acquiring organization.
Instead of maturing in the hands of the most competent and passionate players, it was redirected. Alongside the development of AI technologies, AI-integrated DSPM could have served an important gatekeeper role in comprehensive cybersecurity strategies. As it stands, DSPMs are falling into the same failing paradigm as other legacy tools.
Why DSPM is No Longer Sufficient
Despite its benefits, DSPM has inherent limitations that make it inadequate as a standalone solution:
1. Reactive, not proactive: Most DSPMs operate as monitoring solutions, offering insights and alerts but not preventing threats. They may detect anomalies or non-compliance but leave remediation to slow and error-prone manual processes.
2. Focused on exfiltration: DSPMs largely focus on preventing sensitive data from leaving the organization. However, attackers and malicious insiders have limitless ways to manipulate or exfiltrate data, from encrypted channels to API abuse. Once they have access, accounting for attackers’ varied tactics and capabilities is nearly impossible. Human creativity and intelligence, combined with powerful AI tools, have created a hydra. For every vulnerability closed, two more open. Preventing threats is the key to preventing exfiltration.
3. Remediation gaps: While DSPMs identify risks, they often fail to offer smart (context-aware) and automated remediations. Even fewer take responsibility for executing these remediations, leaving enterprises vulnerable to delayed responses. This responsibility falls to overburdened security teams who now have to figure out how to close those gaps.
Zero-Day Data Security: A New Standard
The emergence of DarkAI has made the threat landscape more unpredictable. Attackers can now generate sophisticated, never-before-seen malware that exploit vulnerabilities in ways traditional DSPMs cannot anticipate. As a result, organizations relying solely on DSPM are exposed to unknown risks with inadequate security tools.
Enter Zero-Day Data Security (ZDDS), a new paradigm. Unlike DSPM, which focuses on visibility and preventing data exfiltration, ZDDS prioritizes proactive prevention and remediation. It secures data wherever it’s found against known and unknown threats. Deep Instinct leads the way in ZDDS with Data Security X (DSX).
DSX prevents threats before they compromise data using the world’s only deep learning (DL) framework (a specialized AI architecture that learns patterns from massive datasets) trained for cybersecurity. The DSX Brain is trained on billions of data points to recognize and prevent threats before they execute. Rather than just alerting on known threats and vulnerabilities, as DSPM does, DSX prevents the most sophisticated and dangerous unknown threats. Here’s how:
- Proactive prevention: Effective ZDDS leverages DL and AI-driven threat detection to block attacks before they occur, safeguarding sensitive data.
- End-to-end coverage: ZDDS is flexible and adaptive enough to provide seamless protection across diverse data estates, whether it’s on-premises, hybrid, or in the public cloud.
- Automated remediation: ZDDS doesn’t just identify risks, it neutralizes them. Solutions like DSX for Cloud and DSX for NAS have prevention embedded into the workflow, ensuring proactive response without manual intervention.
ZDDS is the next frontier in data security, and DSX is the trailblazer, providing organizations with the means to defend against today’s most advanced threats. By adopting a ZDDS solution, enterprises can go beyond compliance and visibility to achieve true resilience against data breaches and attacks.
Conclusion
DSPM was a crucial step forward in data security, but it is no longer sufficient in the face of today’s sophisticated threats. Its consolidation into broader platforms underscores its limitations and the need for a more proactive and comprehensive approach.
ZDDS is not just a buzzword—it’s a necessity, the next crucial step forward. As the threat landscape evolves, enterprises must adopt solutions like Data Security X (DSX) to stay ahead of attackers and ensure data integrity. In this new era, prevention is not optional; it is the cornerstone of security.
To experience zero-day data security powered by DSX in your environment, request your free scan.
