Moving business operations to the cloud is one thing. Keeping the infrastructure and the data within it secure is another. As organizations adopt multiple cloud services, security teams need to keep track of changing configurations, access permissions, and sensitive information spread across different environments.
Cloud security posture management (CSPM) and data security posture management (DSPM) help organizations address this challenge. While both manage cloud security risks, CSPM focuses on securing cloud infrastructure and its configurations, and DSPM focuses on discovering, classifying, and protecting sensitive data.
Understanding CSPM and DSPM
CSPM and DSPM are security approaches designed to identify and manage risks across cloud environments.
What is CSPM?
CSPM is a cybersecurity approach that includes automated tools and practices for continuously monitoring public, hybrid, and multi-cloud infrastructures to identify misconfigurations, insecure settings, and deviations from established security policies.
CSPM tools assess resources such as virtual machines, cloud storage, databases, networking configurations, and identity permissions across cloud platforms.
These tools help organizations:
- Discover cloud resources and maintain visibility across multiple cloud environments.
- Detect insecure configurations, such as publicly accessible storage or overly permissive access policies.
- Assess cloud settings against security benchmarks and compliance requirements.
- Prioritize configuration risks and provide remediation recommendations.
- Monitor configuration changes that could introduce new security exposures.
For example, if a cloud storage bucket is accidentally configured for public access, CSPM can flag the insecure setting and help IT admins correct it before it becomes an entry point for unauthorized access.
What is DSPM?
DSPM is a data-centric cybersecurity technology that helps organizations discover, classify, and assess risks associated with sensitive data across cloud and hybrid environments.
Rather than evaluating infrastructure security alone, DSPM goes further. It examines sensitive data across diverse storage environments such as cloud data repositories and on-premises databases, where that information resides, and who can access it.
DSPM solutions typically help organizations:
- Discover sensitive data across cloud storage, databases, and other supported repositories.
- Classify information such as personally identifiable information (PII), financial records, and intellectual property.
- Identify excessive permissions and unintended exposure of sensitive information.
- Detect forgotten, duplicated, or unmanaged sensitive data.
- Assess data security risks against internal policies and regulatory requirements.
For example, an organization may have a properly configured cloud database but unknowingly store sensitive customer information in it with access permissions that are broader than necessary. DSPM can identify the sensitive information and highlight the associated access risks.
Unlike CSPM, which primarily evaluates the infrastructure configuration, DSPM provides context about the sensitivity and exposure of the data itself.
Read more: What is DSPM?
How do DSPM and CSPM differ?
The primary difference between DSPM and CSPM lies in what they assess and how they determine security risks. CSPM evaluates whether cloud resources are securely configured, while DSPM evaluates whether sensitive data is appropriately identified, accessible, and protected.
But this is just scratching the surface. Other key differences include:
1. Security focus: CSPM concentrates on cloud infrastructure security, including configurations, network settings, and resource permissions. DSPM concentrates on sensitive data, its location, classification, and exposure.
2. Asset visibility: CSPM discovers cloud resources such as virtual machines, storage services, and networking components. DSPM discovers sensitive information within data repositories, including both structured and unstructured data.
3. Risk identification: CSPM detects infrastructure misconfigurations, insecure access policies, and configuration drift. DSPM identifies risks such as excessive access to sensitive records, unprotected data copies, and inappropriate data exposure.
4. Risk prioritization: CSPM generally evaluates configuration severity, exposure, and potential attack paths. DSPM adds data sensitivity and accessibility context to determine which exposures could have the greatest impact.
5. Compliance management: CSPM supports compliance by assessing cloud configurations against security benchmarks and policies. DSPM supports data-related compliance by identifying regulated information and assessing its storage, accessibility, and protection.
6. Remediation approach: CSPM typically recommends correcting configurations, tightening permissions, or applying cloud security policies. DSPM helps teams determine where to restrict data access and address unnecessary sensitive data exposure.
DSPM vs CSPM: Key differences at a glance
| Comparison | CSPM | DSPM |
|---|---|---|
| Primary focus | Cloud infrastructure security | Sensitive data security |
| Assets monitored | Cloud resources, configurations, networking, and permissions | Databases, storage repositories, sensitive records, and data access |
| Main risks identified | Misconfigurations, insecure settings, and configuration drift | Data exposure, excessive access permissions, and unmanaged sensitive information |
| Core capabilities | Resource discovery, configuration assessment, compliance monitoring, remediation guidance | Data discovery, classification, access analysis, exposure assessment |
| Compliance focus | Cloud security configurations and benchmarks | Data protection, privacy, and governance requirements |
| Typical remediation | Correct insecure settings and resource permissions | Restrict sensitive data access and address data exposure |
| Best suited for | Organizations managing complex cloud infrastructure | Organizations handling sensitive or regulated data |
Both approaches can identify access-related security risks. However, CSPM evaluates permissions primarily from an infrastructure security perspective, while DSPM examines their implications for sensitive information.
Also read: DSPM vs. DLP
DSPM vs CSPM: Pros and cons
Neither DSPM nor CSPM addresses every aspect of cloud security. Each has its strengths and limitations that organizations should consider before implementation.
CSPM: Pros and cons
CSPM is particularly useful for organizations that need consistent security oversight across cloud infrastructure.
Pros:
- Centralized cloud visibility: Provides a consolidated view of cloud resources and their security configurations across supported cloud platforms.
- Continuous configuration assessment: Detects insecure settings and configuration drift as cloud environments change.
- Simplified compliance assessments: Automates checks against cloud security benchmarks and helps teams prepare compliance evidence.
- Faster remediation: Identifies configuration issues and provides corrective guidance, with automated remediation available in some solutions.
Cons:
- Limited data context: Traditional CSPM tools may detect exposed storage without identifying the sensitivity of the information stored inside it.
- Configuration alert volume: Large cloud environments can generate numerous findings, making prioritization difficult without additional context.
- Deployment complexity: Multicloud environments may require extensive integrations, policy customization, and ongoing configuration management.
DSPM: Pros and cons
DSPM is valuable for organizations that need to understand where sensitive information exists, how it could be accessed, and where it might be exposed.
Pros:
- Sensitive data visibility: Identifies and classifies sensitive information across supported structured and unstructured data repositories.
- Contextual risk assessment: Helps security teams prioritize exposures based on data sensitivity, accessibility, and associated risks.
- Improved data governance: Supports decisions about data ownership, retention, access permissions, and protection requirements.
- Identification of shadow data: Reveals forgotten, duplicated, or unmanaged sensitive information that may fall outside existing security processes.
Cons:
- Limited infrastructure coverage: DSPM does not replace CSPM’s broader cloud configuration and infrastructure security assessments.
- Complex data environments: Discovery and classification can become challenging when organizations manage numerous repositories, data formats, and access models.
- Remediation dependencies: Some DSPM solutions primarily identify risks and require integrations or administrator intervention to enforce corrective measures.
It is important to note that these limitations often depend on the platform. Modern security solutions increasingly combine posture management capabilities, so the distinction between individual product capabilities may not always be as clear as the distinction between the two approaches.
CSPM vs DSPM: Which one do you need?
Choosing between CSPM and DSPM depends on the risks an organization needs to address.
For organizations struggling with cloud misconfigurations, low infrastructure visibility, or inconsistent security policies, CSPM is generally the more relevant starting point.
For organizations concerned about sensitive data exposure, excessive access, or unknown data repositories, DSPM addresses a different set of security requirements.
When should you use CSPM?
CSPM is useful when cloud infrastructure security and configuration management are the main priorities.
Common CSPM use cases include:
- Multicloud security management: Monitor configurations and security policies across cloud platforms such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud.
- Misconfiguration detection: Identify publicly exposed resources, insecure networking rules, and overly permissive cloud identity policies.
- Cloud compliance monitoring: Assess infrastructure configurations against applicable security benchmarks and organizational requirements.
- Configuration drift detection: Detect changes that cause cloud resources to deviate from approved security settings.
- Cloud deployment security: Identify configuration issues during development and deployment when the CSPM platform supports integration with DevSecOps workflows.
CSPM is particularly relevant for organizations with rapidly changing cloud environments where manually checking every resource is no longer practical.
When should you use DSPM?
DSPM becomes more relevant when organizations need greater visibility into sensitive information and the risks associated with its storage and accessibility.
Common DSPM use cases include:
- Sensitive data discovery: Identify customer records, financial information, intellectual property, and other sensitive data across supported repositories.
- Data access governance: Detect excessive permissions and identify users or identities with unnecessary access to sensitive datasets.
- Data privacy compliance: Locate regulated information and identify exposures that may conflict with requirements under regulations such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
- Shadow data detection: Discover forgotten databases, unmanaged copies, and sensitive information stored outside approved locations.
- Data exposure prioritization: Determine which repositories require immediate attention based on the sensitivity of the information they contain and its accessibility.
DSPM is especially relevant for organizations managing large volumes of sensitive information across distributed cloud, SaaS, and hybrid data environments. Its effectiveness depends on the repositories and platforms supported by the solution.
When should you use both DSPM and CSPM?
Organizations should consider using CSPM and DSPM together when they need visibility into both the security of their cloud infrastructure and the sensitivity of the information stored within it.
Consider a cloud database that allows connections from an unnecessarily broad network range.
CSPM can identify the insecure network configuration and recommend restricting access. However, the configuration finding alone may not indicate whether the database contains publicly available information or confidential customer records.
DSPM can provide that missing context by identifying sensitive records in the database and assessing who has access to them.
Together, these findings help security teams understand not only that a cloud resource is exposed, but also the potential consequences of that exposure.
Combining DSPM and CSPM provides several practical advantages:
- More informed risk prioritization: Infrastructure exposures can be evaluated alongside data sensitivity, helping teams focus on findings with potentially greater business impact.
- Better visibility into interconnected risks: Security teams can identify how insecure configurations and excessive data permissions contribute to the same exposure.
- Coordinated remediation: Cloud security teams can correct infrastructure issues while data security teams address unnecessary data access or protection gaps.
- Broader compliance coverage: Infrastructure configuration assessments and sensitive data governance findings can support different aspects of regulatory compliance.
Some cloud-native application protection platforms (CNAPPs) combine CSPM and DSPM capabilities, allowing organizations to correlate infrastructure and data security findings. However, integration depth and remediation capabilities vary by vendor.
Securing the cloud means protecting both infrastructure and data
The choice between CSPM and DSPM comes down to what an organization needs to secure and which risks it needs to address first.
A business expanding its cloud infrastructure may prioritize CSPM to maintain secure configurations and consistent oversight. An organization handling large volumes of sensitive information may prioritize DSPM to understand where that data resides and whether it is adequately protected.
For organizations managing both complex cloud environments and sensitive business information, using the two approaches together can provide a more complete understanding of security risks.