Yoav Regev

“For whosoever commands the sea commands the trade; whosoever commands the trade of the world commands the riches of the world, and consequently the world itself.” — Sir Walter Raleigh.

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For centuries, power belonged to those who ruled the seas. Today, power belongs to those who control and harness their data’s potential. But let’s face it—many organizations are adrift, overwhelmed by the sheer volume of data and rushing to keep pace in a rapidly shifting threatscape. Navigating these waters requires clarity, foresight, and the right tools to stay afloat and steer toward success. Sound familiar? 

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In this new reality, controlling data now drives success. But success isn’t just about collecting data, it’s about being truly data-driven. For modern businesses, data isn’t just another resource. Data is the engine of growth, innovation, and smarter decision-making. Yet many leaders still grapple with critical questions:

• Are you really in control of your data?
• Do you make decisions based on the insights your data provides?
• Are you using it to navigate toward long-term success?

In this blog, I’ll explore why mastering your data isn’t just a strategic advantage—it’s the foundation of survival in today’s competitive market - Data is the way to success and prosperity in an organization. I’ll also break down how forward-thinking organizations are using comprehensive Data Security Platforms to navigate this new era where speed, innovation, and security can finally coexist.

The Role of Data in Organizational Success

Data drives innovation, fuels growth, and powers smart decision-making. Businesses use data to develop new products, improve customer experiences, and maintain a competitive edge. But let’s be clear, collecting vast amounts of data isn’t enough. True success comes from securing it, understanding it, and putting it to work effectively.

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If you don’t fully understand or protect your data, how valuable can it really be?

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Organizations face a constant barrage of threats: data breaches, shadow data, and excessive access permissions. Without strong safeguards, these vulnerabilities don’t just pose risks—they become ticking time bombs.

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For years, controlling and understanding your data was impossible—it was a complex, imprecise, expensive, and time-consuming process that required significant resources. Today, for the first time ever, there is a solution. With innovative approaches and cutting-edge technology, organizations can now gain the clarity and control they need to manage their data effectively!

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With the right approach, businesses can transform their data management from a reactive process to a competitive advantage, driving both innovation and resilience. As data security demands grow, these tools have evolved into something much more powerful: comprehensive Data Security Platforms (DSPs). Unlike basic solutions, you can expect a data security platform to deliver advanced capabilities such as enhanced access control, real-time threat monitoring, and holistic data management. This all-encompassing approach doesn’t just protect sensitive data—it makes it actionable and valuable, empowering organizations to thrive in an ever-changing landscape.

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Building a strong data security strategy starts with visionary leadership. It’s about creating a foundation that not only protects data but enables organizations to innovate fearlessly in the face of uncertainty.

The Three Key Pillars for Securing and Leveraging Data

1. Understand Your Data

The foundation of any data security strategy is visibility. Knowing where your data is stored, who has access to it, and what sensitive information it contains is essential. Data sprawl remains a challenge for many organizations. The latest tools, powered by automation and intelligence, provide unprecedented clarity by discovering, classifying, and mapping sensitive data. These insights allow businesses to make sharper, faster decisions to protect and harness their most valuable resource.

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Beyond discovery, advanced tools continuously monitor data flows, track changes, and alert teams to potential risks in real-time. With a complete understanding of their data, organizations can shift from reactive responses to proactive management.

2. Control Your Data

Visibility is the first step; control is the next. Managing access to sensitive information is critical to minimizing risk. This involves identifying overly broad permissions and ensuring that access is granted only to those who truly need it.

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Having full control of your data becomes even more challenging when data is copied or moved between environments—such as from private to public or from encrypted to unencrypted. This process creates "similar data," in which data that was initially secure becomes exposed to greater risk by being moved into a lower environment. Data that was once limited to a small, regulated group of identities (users) then becomes accessible by a larger number of users, resulting in a significant loss of control.

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Effective data security strategies go beyond identifying these issues. They enforce access policies, automate corrective actions, and integrate with identity and access management systems to help organizations maintain a strong security posture, even as their business needs change and evolve. In addition to having robust data identification methods, it’s crucial to prioritize the implementation of access control measures. This involves establishing Role-based Access Control (RBAC) and Attribute-based Access Control (ABAC) policies, so that the right users have permissions at the right times.

3. Monitor Your Data

Real security goes beyond awareness—it demands a dynamic approach. Real-time monitoring doesn’t just detect risks and threats; it anticipates them. By spotting unusual behaviors or unauthorized access early, businesses can preempt incidents and maintain trust in an increasingly volatile digital environment. Advanced tools provide visibility into suspicious activities, offer real-time alerts, and automate responses, enabling security teams to act swiftly. This ongoing oversight ensures that businesses stay resilient and adaptive in an ever-changing environment.

Being Fast and Secure

In today’s competitive market, speed drives success—but speed without security is a recipe for disaster. Organizations must balance rapid innovation with robust protection.

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Modern tools streamline security operations by delivering actionable insights for faster, more informed risk responses. A comprehensive Data Security Platform goes further by integrating security workflows, automating threat detection, and enabling real-time remediation across multi-cloud environments. By embedding security into daily processes, businesses can maintain agility while protecting their most critical assets.

Why Continuous Data Security is the Key to Long-Term Growth

Data security isn’t a one-and-done effort—it’s an ongoing commitment. As businesses scale and adopt new technologies, their data environments grow more complex, and security threats continue to evolve. Organizations that continuously understand and control their data are poised to turn uncertainty into opportunity. By maintaining this control, they sustain growth, protect trust, and future-proof their success.

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Adaptability is the foundation of long-term success. A robust data security platform evolves with your business, providing continuous visibility, automating risk management, and enabling proactive security measures. By embedding these capabilities into daily operations, organizations can maintain speed and agility without compromising protection.

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In today’s data-driven world, success hinges on making informed decisions with secure data. Businesses that master continuous data security will not only safeguard their assets but also position themselves to thrive in an ever-changing competitive landscape.

Conclusion: The Critical Link Between Data Security and Success

Data is the lifeblood of modern businesses, driving growth, innovation, and decision-making. But with this immense value comes an equally immense responsibility: protecting it. A comprehensive data security platform goes beyond the basics, unifying discovery, classification, access governance, and real-time protection into a single proactive approach. True success in a data-driven world demands more than agility—it requires mastery. Organizations that embrace data security as a catalyst for innovation and resilience are the ones who will lead the way in today’s competitive landscape.

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The question is: Will you lead the charge or risk being left behind? The opportunity to secure your future starts now.

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Final thought: In my work with organizations across industries, I’ve seen firsthand how those who treat data security as a strategic enabler, rather than an obligation, consistently outperform their peers. The future belongs to those who lead with confidence, clarity, and control.

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If you're interested in learning how Sentra's Data Security Platform can help you understand and protect your data to drive success in today’s competitive landscape, request a demo today.

If you had searched for "DSPM" on Google three years ago, you likely would have only found information related to a dspm manufacturing website… But in just a few short years, the concept of Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) has evolved from an idea into a critical component of modern cybersecurity for enterprises.

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Let’s rewind to the summer of 2021. Back then, when we were developing what would become Sentra and our DSPM solution, the term didn’t even exist. All that existed was the problem - data was being created, moved and duplicated in the cloud, and its security posture wasn’t keeping pace. Organizations didn’t know where all of their data was, and even if they could find it, its level of protection was inadequate for its level of sensitivity.

After extensive discussions with CISOs and security experts, we realized a critical gap between data security and the modern environments (further exacerbated by the fast pace of AI). Addressing this gap wasn’t just important—it was essential. Through these conversations, we identified the need for a new approach, leading to the creation of the DSPM concept, which didn't exist before. 

It was thrilling to hear my Co-Founder and VP Product, Yair Cohen, declare for the first time, “the world’s first DSPM is coming in 2021.” We embraced the term "Data Security Posture Management," now widely known as "DSPM."

Why DSPM Has Become an Essential Tool

Today, DSPM has become mainstream, helping organizations safeguard their most valuable asset: their data.

"Three years ago, when we founded Sentra, we dreamed of creating a new category called DSPM. It was a huge bet to pursue new budgets, but we believed that data security would be the next big thing due to the shift to the cloud. We could never have imagined that it would become the world’s hottest security category and that the potential would be so significant."

-Ron Reiter, Co-Founder and CTO, Sentra

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This summer, Gartner has released its 2024 Hype Cycle for Data Security, and DSPM is in the spotlight for good reason. Gartner describes DSPM as having "transformative" potential, particularly for addressing long-standing data security challenges. As companies rapidly move to the cloud, DSPM solutions are gaining traction by filling critical visibility gaps. The best DSPM solutions offer coverage across multi-cloud and on-premises environments, creating a unified approach to data security. DSPM plays a pivotal role in the modern cybersecurity landscape by providing organizations with real-time visibility into their data security posture. It helps identify, prioritize and mitigate risks across the entire data estate. By continuously monitoring data movement and access patterns, DSPM ensures that any policy violations or deviations from normal behavior are quickly flagged and addressed, preventing potential breaches before they can cause damage.

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DSPM is also critical in maintaining compliance with data protection regulations. As organizations handle increasingly complex data environments, meeting regulatory requirements becomes more challenging. DSPM simplifies this process by automating compliance checks and providing clear insights into where sensitive data resides, how it’s being used, and who has access to it. This not only helps organizations avoid hefty fines but also builds trust with customers and stakeholders by demonstrating a commitment to data security and privacy.

In a world where data privacy and security threats rank among the biggest challenges facing society, DSPM provides a crucial layer of protection. Businesses, individuals, and governments are all at risk, with sensitive information constantly under threat. 

That’s why we are committed to developing our data security platform, which ensures your data remains secure and intact, no matter where it travels.

From DSPM to Data Security Platform in the AI Age

We began with a clear understanding of the critical need for Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) to address data proliferation risks in the evolving cloud landscape. As a leading data security platform, Sentra has expanded its capabilities based on our customers’ needs to include Data Access Governance (DAG), Data Detection and Response (DDR), and other essential tools to better manage data access, detect emerging threats, and assist organizations in their journey to implement Data Loss Prevention (DLP). We now do this across all environments (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, and On-Premises).

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We continue to evolve. In a world rapidly changing with advancements in AI, our platform offers the most comprehensive and effective data security solutions to keep pace with the demands of the AI age. As AI reshapes the digital landscape, it also creates new vulnerabilities, such as the risk of data exposure through AI training processes. Our platform addresses these AI-specific challenges, while continuing to tackle the persistent security issues from the cloud era, providing an integrated solution that ensures data security remains resilient and adaptive.

DSPMs facilitate swift AI development and smooth business operations by automatically securing LLM training data. Integrations with platforms like AWS SageMaker and GCP Vertex AI, combined with features such as DAG and DDR, ensure robust data security and privacy. This approach both supports responsible AI applications and also reduces risks such as breaches and bias. So, Sentra is no longer only a DSPM solution, it’s a data security platform. Today, we provide holistic solutions that allow you to locate any piece of data and access all the information you need. Our mission is to continuously build and enhance the best data security platform, empowering organizations to move faster and succeed in today’s digital world. 

Success Driven by Our Amazing People

We’re proud that Sentra has emerged as a leader in the data security industry, making a significant impact on how organizations protect their data. Our success is driven by our incredible team, their hard work, dedication, and energy are the foundation of everything we do. From day one, our people have always been our top priority. It's inspiring to see our team work tirelessly to transform the world of data security and build the best solution out there. This team of champions never stops innovating, inspiring, and striving to be the best version of themselves every day.

Their passion is evident in their work, as shown in recent projects that they initiated, from the new video series, “Answering the Most Searched DSPM Questions”, to a behind the scenes walkthrough of our data security platform, and more.

We’re excited to continue to push the boundaries of what’s possible in data security.

A heartfelt thank you to our incredible team, loyal customers, supportive investors, and dedicated partners. We’re excited to keep driving innovation in data security and to continue our mission of making the digital world a safer place for everyone.

In April of 2023, it was discovered that several Samsung employees reportedly leaked sensitive data via OpenAI’s chatbot ChatGPT. The data leak included the source code of software responsible for measuring semiconductor equipment. This leak emphasizes the importance of taking preventive measures against future breaches associated with Large Language Models (LLMs).

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LLMs are created to generate responses to questions with data that they continuously receive, which can unintentionally expose confidential information. Even though OpenAI specifically tells users not to share “any sensitive information in your conversations”, ChatGPT and other LLMs are simply too useful to ban for security reasons. You wouldn’t ban an employee from using Google or an engineer from Github. Business productivity (almost) always comes first.

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This means that the risks of spilling company secrets and sharing sensitive data with LLMs are not going anywhere. And you can be sure that more generative AI tools will be introduced to the workplace in the near future.

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“Banning chatbots one by one will start feeling “like playing whack-a-mole” really soon.”

• Joe Payne, the CEO of insider risk software solutions provider Code42.

In many ways, the effect of LLMs on data security is similar to the changes we saw 10-15 years ago when companies started moving their data to the cloud.

Broadly speaking, we can say there have been three ‘eras’ of data and data security….

The Era of On-Prem Data

The first was the era of on-prem data. For most of the history of computing, enterprises stored their data in on-prem data centers, and secured access to sensitive data by fortifying the perimeter. The data also wasn’t going anywhere on its own. It lived on company servers, was managed by company IT teams, and they controlled who accessed anything that lived on those systems. 

The Era of the Cloud

Then came the next era - the cloud. Suddenly, corporate data wasn’t static anymore. Data was free and could be shared anywhere - engineers, BI tools, and data scientists were accessing and moving thus free-flowing data to drive the business forward. How you leverage your data becomes an integral part of a company’s success. While the business benefits were clear, this created a number of concerns - particularly around privacy, compliance, and security. Data needed to move quickly, securely, and have the proper security posture at all times. 

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The challenge was that now security teams were struggling with basic questions about the data  like: 

• Where is my data? 
• Who has access to it? 
• How can I comply with regulations? 

It was during this era that Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) emerged as a solution to this problem - by ensuring that data always had proper access controls wherever it traveled, this solution promised to address security and compliance issues for enterprises with fast-moving cloud data.

And while we were answering these questions, a new era emerged, with a host of new challenges. 

The Era of AI

The recent rise of Large Language Models (LLMs) as indispensable business tools in just the past few years has introduced a new dimension to data security challenges. It has significantly amplified the existing issues in the cloud era, presenting an unparalleled and exploding problem. While it has accelerated business operations to new heights, this development has also taken the cloud to another level of risk and challenge.

While securing data in the cloud was a challenge, at least you controlled (somehow) your cloud. You could decide who could access it, and when. You could decide what data to keep and what to remove. That has all changed as LLMs and AI play a larger role in company operations. 

Globally, and specifically in the US, organizations are facing the challenge of managing these new AI technology initiatives efficiently while maintaining speed and ensuring regulatory compliance. CEOs and boards are increasingly urging companies to leverage LLMs and AI and use them as databases. However, there is a limited understanding of associated risks and difficulties in controlling the data input into these models. The ultimate goal is to mitigate and prevent such situations effectively. 

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LLMs are a black box. You don't know what data your engineers are feeding into it, and you can’t be sure that users aren’t going to be able to manipulate your LLMs into disclosing sensitive information. For example, an engineer training a model might accidentally use real customer data that now exists somewhere in the LLM and might be inadvertently disclosed. Or an LLM powered chatbot might have a vulnerability that leads it to respond with sensitive company data to an inquiry. This is the challenge facing the data security team in this new era. 

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How can you know what the LLM has access to, how it’s using that data, and who it’s sharing that data with?

Solving The Challenges of the Cloud and AI Eras at the Same Time

Adding to the complexity for security and compliance professionals is that we’re still dealing with the challenges from the cloud era. Fortunately, Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) has adapted to solve these eras’ primary data security headaches.

For data in the cloud, DSPM can discover your sensitive data anywhere in the cloud environment, understand who can access this data, and assess its vulnerability to security threats and risk of regulatory non-compliance. Organizations can harness advanced technologies while ensuring privacy and compliance seamlessly integrated into their processes. Further, DSPM tackles issues such as finding shadow data, identifying sensitive information with inadequate security postures, discovering duplicate data, and ensuring proper access control.

For the LLM data challenges, DSPMs can automatically secure LLM training data, facilitating swift AI application development, and letting the business run as smoothly as possible.

Any DSPM solution that collaborates with platforms like AWS SageMaker and GCP Vertex AI, as well as other AI IDEs, can ensure secure data handling during ML training. Full integrations with features like Data Access Governance (DAG) and Data Detection and Response (DDR), provide a robust approach to data security and privacy.

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AI has the remarkable capacity to reshape our world, yet this must be balanced with a firm dedication to maintaining data integrity and privacy. Ensuring data integrity and privacy in LLMs is crucial for the creation of ethical and responsible AI applications. By utilizing DSPM, organizations are equipped to apply best practices in data protection, thereby reducing the dangers of data breaches, unauthorized access, and bias. This approach is key to fostering a safe and ethical digital environment as we advance in the LLM era.

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To learn more about DSPM, request a demo today.

By Yoav Regev, CEO and Co-Founder, Sentra

Today we’re announcing that Sentra has raised a $30 million dollar Series A round to revolutionize the way cloud first enterprises secure their data. This brings Sentra’s total funding to $53M.  I’m excited to be working together with  Standard Industries, Munich Re Ventures, Moore Capital, Xerox, INT3, Bessemer Venture Partners, and Zeev Ventures  to help enterprises securely leverage their data to enable growth. The last 18 months have already been an amazing journey, and I wanted to take this opportunity to share some thoughts around how we got to where we are, and what I’m looking forward to in the coming months and years. 

The Sentra Team

When we founded Sentra, we had a very clear objective regarding the team we wanted to build - we only wanted the best people. People who are passionate about their work and the problems we’re addressing. Not just people who are technically brilliant, but those who are drawn to challenges and aren’t easily discouraged. This is the mindset required to solve one of the largest problems facing cybersecurity leaders. 

18 months later, it’s clear we accomplished that objective. This team built a revolutionary new data security platform that’s impressing security leaders on a daily basis. Within minutes of seeing the platform, security leaders grasp the value Sentra is providing - securing the most important corporate asset (data) while simultaneously breaking down silos between security, engineering, and data teams.

The Sentra Way

Culture comes from people. When you have the best people it’s just going to be easier to build a productive and healthy culture. Teams should be excited to work together. I’d describe the culture today as one that values independence, responsibility, and persistence. Team members need to be given the freedom to try new things, occasionally fail at them, and move on quickly to find other, better ways forward. When you’re building a product to solve a global security problem, it’s going to be difficult, and there will be setbacks and disappointments. The team at Sentra embodies these values and it’s what’s allowed us to build such a revolutionary product so quickly. 

Building the Data Centric Future

Getting the right team and culture in place is critical for tackling one of the greatest security challenges of our time - data security in the cloud. There are a few reasons why cloud data security is an unsolved problem. 

It begins with the simple fact that data travels in the cloud. It gets processed, extracted, duplicated, and moved by different teams. But when data moves, its security posture doesn’t move with it - for example, if it was encrypted in one environment and duplicated to a lower environment, it might be unencrypted now. Another issue caused by data movement is that sensitive data gets abandoned and forgotten, creating vulnerable shadow data. Finally, even when vulnerable sensitive data is identified, it’s hard to know where the data came from and how it’s meant to be secured. 

Data and engineering teams are the ones moving this data around. And that’s actually a good thing. We want them to leverage the flexibility of the cloud to do amazing things for the business. Security should enable this work, not slow it down. At the same time, we need to make sure the data is secured. This is what we’re building. A data-centric future where we keep the data secure and enable the business to reach new heights.  

Here’s what this future is going to look like:

First, companies will know where all of their sensitive data is. Shadow data, especially sensitive shadow data, will not exist. Data is the most important asset, and knowing where your most important asset is at all times is crucial.

Next, sensitive data will always have the right security posture. When sensitive data moves and its security posture is affected, the right people know instantly. And they also know where the data came from, who owns it, and how to remediate data vulnerabilities before they become incidents. The data attack surface will shrink, with the result that even when there’s a breach, the most sensitive data assets are secured. 

The result? Business growth. Enterprises will be able to confidently move large amounts of data between cloud environments, generating the insights and innovations they need to grow. In other words, the full promise of the cloud will be realized. 

In the future, organizations will be able to move quickly and securely at the same time!

We’re building this future right now.