Data governance is the art of ensuring that all of that valuable information within your enterprise is safe, correct, and – most importantly – available. But that’s hard to do when you don’t know where your data resides (shadow data), what happened to it once it was accessed (was it copied and pasted?), or how to get to it now (it could be anywhere).

Previous solutions have allowed us to see what is in various data containers – think databases, repositories, cloud storage, on-premises servers, etc. – but not always what happened between those locales. For example, was it sent via WhatsApp to an international number? Was it saved on a private computer? Who knows. And that’s what’s presenting a challenge to modern data governance systems.

Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) uses automation and various forms of AI to find that data, map where it’s been, and tell you what’s happened along the way. How’s that for a head start to data governance? You can only protect, ensure, and reach data that you know about, and DSPM has several creative techniques to help you do that.

Let’s look at three stages integral to a data governance program and how DSPM can help.

Finding and classifying data

It’s easy to lose track of information in the cloud, especially if you’re dealing with multiple cloud environments, and each has its own security and privacy nuances.

The problem is exacerbated when you throw SaaS apps into the mix – the average company uses 130, according to BetterCloud – and soon you’re chasing proverbial cats across a maze-like digital terrain. And even if you have a pretty good map of where all the data should be (we’re talking data governance, after all), there’s no guarantee that the humans interfacing with that data have always followed the rules. Using their privileged access, even top executives could mistakenly send, use, copy, or save data where they shouldn’t, leaving it up to you to find out once that shadow data’s been compromised.

DSPM helps you herd those digital cats by working with your cloud providers and bringing all hidden data to light. As data security firm Cyberhaven notes, “This process is facilitated by integrations with all cloud service providers, including AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud, and involves scanning diverse cloud data storage locations and data flows.” This creates a “comprehensive inventory of data, ensuring that no data is overlooked, especially in complex multi-cloud setups.”

In data governance, knowing where your data resides – all of it- is the first step.

Identifying misconfigurations

Now, you can see if there is anything wrong with the architecture you use to store, process, and even secure your data. That means looking for misconfigurations and spotting them before an attacker does. DSPM can help with just that.

DSPM can automatically discover misconfigurations, anomalies, attack paths, and other risks using a number of tools at its disposal:

• Network scans
• Behavioral analytics
• Threat intelligence databases
• Data flow analysis
• And even penetration tests

Sad fact: The average enterprise experiences roughly 3,500 incidents due to cloud misconfigurations every month, and nine out of ten reported (not surprisingly) experiencing IaaS security issues. Are people just getting sloppy? Well, we know human error is a part of it (a large part, Gartner would argue, blaming us for 99%!), but who can blame us when environments are so complex? Nine in ten organizations are working in multi-cloud environments, and the average enterprise uses 1,061 SaaS apps and handles 1.5 billion API calls. Needless to say, there’s a lot going on.

DSPM enables data governance across this terrain by integrating across complex environments, finding hidden instances of data, and identifying overlooked misconfigurations.

Enforcing policy

What is data governance, if not the enacting of policies relating to the proper handling of data? It entails bringing all the data in (yes), identifying any weak points (yes), and then also setting up rules to ensure all the data stays in and those weaknesses are avoided in the future. That’s where policy creation and enforcement are key – it’s really the hammer behind data governance – and where DSPM especially shines.

DSPM can ensure that cloud resources (and others) are:

• Organized
• Audited
• Properly configured
• Secured
• Within compliance boundaries
• Properly maintained

How? It automates the application of security controls across an environment, applying labels and enforcing data loss prevention (DLP) policies, removing excess permissions to keep things compliant, and boosting security by leveraging machine learning to establish baselines and alert your team when something behaves outside the bounds of policy.

DSPM can also revoke unauthorized access, encrypt sensitive assets, and leverage automated remediation to fix simple issues and vulnerabilities without human involvement.

The Take Home

The grand, overarching point of data governance is to help organizations (responsibly) account for all the data within their environment. When you’re dealing with complex architectures, hybrid, multi-cloud, on-premises, legacy, and remote environments, the task of running around and securing every nook and cranny is – well, hard. While we should still be dedicated to that fight, DSPM provides a shortcut in which organizations can track, find, tag, and monitor data directly – no matter where it goes or in what environment it resides.

This unprecedented insight into the lifecycle of their data will give companies the transparency they need to manage their most sensitive assets correctly. Data governance processes are only as good as the information they have. Data security posture management gives them direct access to the critical information they need to account for their data across an increasingly convoluted digital landscape. It’s a tool fit for its time.

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