Data security is constantly changing to keep up with evolving threats. Those in the business have to stay abreast of trends and technologies, so they know how best to protect businesses and their data. One of the best resources to get insights on trends is Gartner’s Hype Cycle for Data Security 2023 report.
What Is the Hype Cycle?
New technologies often take time to gain acceptance and achieve success. They have to go through a series of stages. If you know the stage at which the technology is, you can decide whether it’s the right time for you to adopt it.
The hype cycle is Gartner’s attempt to provide you with that knowledge. It maps out the development of a technology to tell you when you can expect it to be adopted by the majority.
As Gartner explains, “The hype cycle provides an objective map that helps you understand the real risks and opportunities of innovation, so you can avoid adopting something too early, giving up too soon, adopting too late, or hanging on too long.”
What Does the Hype Cycle for Data Security 2023 Look At?
Gartner’s latest insights show that data security strategies are evolving due to the changing demands of industries focused on compliance and security. The report helps decision-makers by showing them new technologies that can strengthen data protection and explaining the changing security solutions.
The report looks at the different aspects of data security, such as:
- Data governance, risk assessment, and privacy
- Structured and unstructured data, data discovery, and its categorisation and classification
- Analytics and processing across endpoints, applications, and storage layers
- Data encryption and anonymisation for privacy and protection
- Access and activity management
- Data security across multi-cloud platforms
Notably, Gartner has introduced five new technologies to the landscape this year: crypto-agility, post-quantum cryptography, quantum key distribution, sovereign data strategies, and digital communications governance. At the same time, eight technologies have either been replaced or repositioned within the context of this year’s analysis.
Navigating the landscape of data security integration at the enterprise level has always posed challenges. The need for a more robust approach to data integration has catalysed the emergence of various solutions over time, each varying in degrees of security.
In accordance with Gartner’s projections, these challenges are expected to instigate a transformation in the data protection technology arena. This transformation encompasses aspects such as data security posture management (DSPM), data protection platforms (DSPs), and the monitoring of database activities across multi-cloud environments (DAM).
The focus, however, seems to be on DSPM.
So, what is DSPM, and how does it help data security professionals?
An Overview of DSPM
Data analytics and pipelines have undergone a radical transformation because of cloud technology. DSPM can help you safeguard your data wherever it is located—whether on the cloud (or multi-cloud environments), in databases, file servers, or on-premise.
DSPM solutions give you a centralised platform with which to monitor and manage the security of your data.
Of course, it might need to be combined with cloud security posture management (CSPM) for best results. Data security platform BigID provides a comprehensive comparison between the two services.
What Drives Adoption of DSPM
There are several factors that make the adoption of DSPM so compelling:
Keeping Up with Dynamic Data Changes
Data pipelines and services are evolving rapidly across different cloud service providers (CSPs). This evolution could lead to unexpected shadow data repositories cropping up, complete with uncertain or inappropriate user access rights. These situations introduce risks tied to data separation, geographic location, and configuration errors.
Staying Compliant
With regulations on the rise, conducting Data Risk Assessments (DRA) becomes essential. That’s where the need for tools that can effectively evaluate Data Security Governance (DSG) policies comes in, helping you meet these growing regulatory demands.
Tackling Infrastructure Risks
Shielding your data from potential exposure due to vulnerabilities and misconfigurations in cloud infrastructure is a priority. This has even paved the way for potential collaborations between DSPM solutions and Cloud Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP).
DSPM Challenges
While DSPM holds remarkable advantages, it’s important to address certain challenges:
Get Integration and Orchestration Right
Not all DSPM products gel seamlessly with third-party security tools. This might create hurdles when you’re trying to coordinate analytics and remedies across multiple tools. To tackle this, it’s crucial for you to assess integration capabilities and streamline your remediation processes.
Think Scalability and Performance
As data volumes explode, your DSPM solutions need to scale smoothly and stay high-performing. To handle large-scale data setups, data security experts like you should meticulously evaluate the capacity and efficiency of your chosen DSPM tools.
If you’re looking to stay ahead of the trends in the data security landscape, Gartner’s hype cycle for data security 2023 is a good place to start. As the report says, using DSPM solutions for your data could help future-proof your security posture and data security through the ever-evolving landscape.
Parul Mathur has been writing since 2009. That’s when she discovered her love for SEO and how it works. She developed an interest in learning HTML and CSS a couple of years later, and React in 2020. When she’s not writing, she’s either reading, walking her dog, messing up her garden, or doodling.
