DSPM is Not the End of the Data Security Line. Next Step is Encryption

Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) tools are becoming increasingly popular as organizations want to enhance their security measures for protecting sensitive data. They turn to DSPM solutions primarily for three reasons:

• Visibility Across Data Assets: DSPM tools offer comprehensive visibility into data assets. Organizations can identify where sensitive data resides, how it flows, and who has access to it. This visibility helps in reducing data sprawl and understanding the data landscape.
• Regulatory Compliance Support: DSPM solutions assist businesses in meeting compliance requirements by continuously monitoring and mapping data against relevant regulatory frameworks. They provide insights into compliance gaps and automate reporting, making it easier to stay ahead of audits.
• Risk Assessment and Remediation: DSPM tools evaluate data environments to identify vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and potential data security risks. DSPM offer recommendations and automated remediation that contribute to strengthening the data security posture.

While DSPM solutions provide valuable insights into data management and compliance, they fall short when it comes to securing encryption keys in your data environment.

Following are the reasons for the DSPM limitations and here's what you should do instead.

1. Limited Focus on Encryption Management

DSPM tools primarily focus on data discovery, classification, and compliance. While they identify where sensitive data resides and provide visibility into data flows, they are not designed to manage or protect encryption keys. Encryption key management requires specialized solutions like Key Management Systems (KMS) specifically built for securely generating, distributing, storing, and rotating keys.

If your organization stores financial data in various cloud environments, a DSPM tool can pinpoint where that data is located. However, it won't offer the necessary controls for securing the encryption keys protecting that financial data, leaving you vulnerable to potential breaches if the keys are compromised.

2. Lack of Control and Granularity Over Keys

DSPM platforms provide an overview of your data environment but lack the granularity required for effective encryption key management. Managing encryption keys demands control over key lifecycle management, including the generation, rotation, expiration, and destruction of keys. Without these capabilities, your encryption practices become weak points in your data security strategy.

An organization must regularly rotate encryption keys for compliance and security. A DSPM tool might identify data requiring encryption but cannot automate or enforce key rotation policies. As a solution, a KMS provides this capability, ensuring that keys are rotated according to security policies and compliance requirements.

3. Insufficient Integration for Hybrid Environments

Most enterprises operate in complex, hybrid environments, combining on-premises infrastructure with multiple cloud providers. If your organization uses AWS, Azure, and on-premises databases, a DSPM tool might help map the data landscape, but it won't synchronize the encryption keys across these platforms. Encryption key security solutions must operate across all these environments, offering a consistent and unified approach to key management. A dedicated KMS can provide central control, ensuring keys are securely managed regardless of where the data resides.

4. Inability to Enforce Encryption Standards and Policies

DSPM tools are excellent for data monitoring and reporting but lack the enforcement capabilities needed to implement encryption policies across your organization. Securing encryption keys means having the power to enforce policies, such as requiring encryption for all data at rest and in transit, and in use, ensuring key rotation, and maintaining segregation of duties to prevent unauthorized access.

Suppose your organization wants to implement a selective encryption policy for all sensitive data. A DSPM tool may identify which datasets lack encryption, but it cannot enforce key use, rotation schedules, or compliance standards.

5. Lack of Support for Advanced Encryption Techniques

Modern data environments require advanced security techniques and tools such as data tokenization, format-preserving encryption (FPE), and hardware-based security modules (HSMs). DSPM solutions fail to support these specialized methods. While DSPM can detect the data requiring protection, it won’t provide tokenization or integration with HSMs that ensure high levels of encryption security.

Conclusion: Combine DSPM with a Dedicated Encryption Solution

DSPM should not be your sole defense for encryption key security.

The next step after DSPM is to implement encryption, but it introduces new complexities, such as managing encryption keys, ensuring proper access controls, and maintaining visibility over encrypted data across hybrid and multi-cloud environments.

To secure encryption keys across diverse data environments, Fortanix offers a comprehensive Key Management System (KMS) integrated with FIPS 140-2 Level 2 Hardware Security Modules (HSMs).

This solution provides centralized control, automated key rotation, distribution, and lifecycle management while maintaining compliance with industry regulations. With advanced encryption techniques like tokenization and format-preserving encryption (FPE), Fortanix ensures robust protection for sensitive data at rest, in transit, and in use across hybrid environments.

Integrating Fortanix KMS with your DSPM platform upgrades overall data security, offering the control and granularity necessary for encryption key management.

Download the Buyer's Guide to Fortanix Encryption Key Management to learn more about the solution.