As organizations continue to embrace digital transformation, they are also struggling to manage rapidly expanding data footprints. Modern enterprises are seeing their data grow in both volume and complexity across cloud and on-premises environments. With the adoption of AI also accelerating, the need for robust, intelligent and scalable data security has never been greater.
A new technical validation report from Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) highlights how Proofpoint Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) addresses these challenges. The report validates that DSPM gives organizations a powerful way to get visibility into their data, reduce risk and ensure the safe use of AI.
The challenge: a surge in data growth and complexity
According to ESG research, 84% of organizations say that their data is growing by more than 10% annually, with 58% seeing growth above 20%. To compound this issue, approximately 64% of enterprise data is unstructured, residing in emails, documents and other formats that are difficult to monitor and secure.
Coupled with its spread across cloud and on-premises environments, this growth in data volume and complexity introduces significant risk. Organizations need tools that not only locate and classify sensitive data but also provide actionable insights to protect it—without disrupting business operations.
The solution: Proofpoint DSPM
Proofpoint DSPM is a comprehensive solution designed to:
- Discover and classify data across cloud and on-premises environments
- Identify and flag human-centric risks based on business impact
- Visualize data access paths and potential attack vectors
- Discover abandoned or orphaned data
- Proactively reduce risk by identifying misconfigurations, such as publicly exposed cloud storage buckets or overshared cloud files
- Streamline remediation with actionable recommendations and integrations with IT service management tools
Using AI-powered, agentless scanning, DSPM identifies and remediates data exposure, over-permissioned access, abandoned data risk, data breach paths and compliance violations.
Key findings of ESG’s technical evaluation
ESG’s hands-on evaluation of Proofpoint DSPM confirmed its effectiveness in several critical areas:
1. Comprehensive visibility into data risk
DSPM provides a unified view of both structured and unstructured data across cloud and hybrid environments such as Microsoft 365, AWS, Azure, GCP, Snowflake and more. It visualizes data access paths and identifies vulnerabilities, even in seemingly secure configurations. It also identifies abandoned data—often overlooked yet costly and risky—enabling organizations to reduce storage expenses and exposure.
2. Improved classification accuracy
In ESG’s hands-on validation, Proofpoint significantly improved classification precision, achieving up to 35% better accuracy in identifying gender data and a 19% improvement in detecting Social Security numbers. This increased accuracy reduces false positives and eases governance.
3. AI readiness and protection
As organizations embrace AI, DSPM ensures that sensitive data isn’t inadvertently used in training datasets. It detects AI services accessing data, flags risks and provides controls to prevent unauthorized use.
4. Prioritization of data risks
DSPM assigns monetary value to data stores, helping security teams to prioritize remediations based on potential business impact. This approach transforms abstract risks into actionable business decisions.
5. An agentless, scalable architecture
DSPM uses AI-powered, agentless scanners that analyze data in place, eliminating the need for additional infrastructure or risky data movement. This minimizes business disruption and means that DSPM is highly scalable and adaptable to dynamic enterprise environments.
6. Streamlined remediation
Using integrations with platforms such as Jira and ServiceNow, DSPM streamlines remediation workflows, further increasing operational efficiency.
Final thoughts: DSPM as a key strategic investment
As enterprise data continues to grow in volume and complexity, so too does the need for intelligent and scalable data security. ESG’s technical validation confirms that DSPM is a powerful tool in this effort. The ESG analysis shows that DSPM offers the visibility, intelligence, controls and streamlined remediation workflows needed to manage data risk in increasingly complex digital environments.
To explore the findings in full and learn why Proofpoint DSPM is a key investment in your data security strategy, download the ESG Technical Validation.
