The cloud has transformed how businesses store, share, and manage data. It’s scalable, fast, and cost-effective. However, as cloud adoption accelerates, organizations face a growing challenge: data visibility in the cloud. Sensitive information is scattered across on-premises, SaaS platforms and cloud storage – creating massive security blind spots.
According to IBM’s Cost of a Data Breach Report 2024, the global average data breach cost reached $4.88M in 2024, and 40% of breached data was stored across multiple environments, 25% stored in the public cloud. These numbers will likely rise as more businesses move to multi-cloud and hybrid systems.
Your cloud security posture is under significant threat when data is omnipresent, yet control is elusive, underscoring the gravity of the situation.
What’s Causing the Cloud Visibility Problem?
Cloud platforms allow for rapid collaboration and scalability but also create complexity. Files are often duplicated, downloaded, and shared across multiple environments, increasing the risk of data sprawl. IT and security teams are left with critical questions:
- Where is our sensitive data stored?
- How many sensitive data are there?
- Who has access to it?
- Has it been shared or exposed externally?
- Are we still compliant with regulations?
Unfortunately, without data visibility, most organizations cannot confidently answer these questions. Limited visibility into an organization’s cloud-stored data mitigating risk and effectively enforcing data protection policies harder. This lack of insight leads to delayed breach detection, compliance failure, and unmonitored exposure of critical information.
Shadow Data: The Hidden Cloud Risk
A major driver of cloud-related risk is shadow data – information that’s not officially tracked, monitored, or secured. Shadow data can include:
- Unmonitored files in personal cloud storage
- Outdated backups in unmanaged locations
- Sensitive data in unapproved SaaS apps
Shadow data creates compliance and security blind spots. In fact, 35% of breaches in 2024 were linked to shadow data. Without visibility and governance, these files remain vulnerable to insider threats, misconfigurations, or accidental leaks.
Why Traditional Cloud Security Isn’t Enough
Many organizations still rely on either perimeter-centric or device-centric security tools but often fall short in modern cloud environments.
- Firewalls: These are designed to control incoming and outgoing traffic based on predefined rules. However, they are perimeter-based and assume a trusted internal network. In today’s cloud-first environment, where data moves beyond traditional boundaries, firewalls cannot protect data downloaded, shared externally, or accessed remotely.
- Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM): CSPM tools help identify misconfigurations and enforce cloud security best practices. While essential for ensuring the proper setup of cloud environments, they are blind to unstructured data within those environments. They can flag an open bucket, but not what sensitive information resides inside it or how it’s being used.
- Identity and Access Management (IAM): IAM solutions manage who can access what systems and applications. While they block unauthorized access, they typically lack control at the file or data level. Once a user is authenticated, IAM doesn’t monitor how that user interacts with individual documents, nor can it stop inappropriate sharing or downloading of sensitive files.
While these solutions are essential, they focus primarily on network and system-level protection, not securing the data. This leaves gaps in security coverage, especially for unstructured data like PDFs, spreadsheets, presentations, and proprietary documents.
Cloud breaches are often caused by:
- Misconfigured cloud storage (e.g., open S3 buckets)
- Overly permissive file-sharing permissions
- Unauthorized downloads
- Lack of granular data access controls
Without data-level protection and control, even well-managed cloud environments can become vulnerable. This is particularly critical for organizations in regulated industries, where unmonitored data exposure can lead to legal penalties and compliance breakdowns.
DSPM: Data-Centric Cloud Security
Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) address the core visibility and protection challenges in cloud environments. Unlike traditional tools, DSPM prioritizes the data itself, helping organizations:
- Discover where sensitive data resides across cloud and hybrid environments (structured and unstructured data)
- Classify files based on sensitivity and regulatory requirements (e.g., GDPR, CCPA, PCI DSS, PDPA)
- Monitor how data is accessed, used, and shared internally or externally
- Enforce policies that control access and trigger alerts on risky activity
This approach of DSPM enables proactive risk mitigation, continuous compliance, and better governance over distributed data assets.
Why Fasoo DSPM for Complete Visibility
While most DPSM solutions track data flows within limited scopes, Fasoo DSPM offers comprehensive visibility into all data activity across cloud platforms, local storage, file servers, and more. Its advanced data lineage capabilities allow organizations to fully understand and trace each file’s origin, transformation, and derivative. In a single platform, organizations can easily identify overlooked information, track the distribution of identical objects, and monitor security status and access permissions. With Fasoo DSPM, organizations can achieve:
- Minimized Risk of Data Breaches: Identify and manage all data, including sensitive customer information, and eliminate the risk of data breaches.
- Enhanced Data Management: Enhance operational efficiency and strengthen security by gaining visibility into sensitive data scattered across multiple repositories
Simplified Regulatory Compliance: Easily monitor and maintain compliance with various regulations such as GDPR, PCI DSS, DPA, and PDPA.
