Forcepoint has been named as a Representative Vendor in Gartner's inaugural Market Guide for Data Security Posture Management (DSPM), marking a significant milestone in the recognition of DSPM as a critical discipline in modern enterprise security.
Why DSPM Matters Now
Organisations today face escalating threats from unstructured and structured data, AI systems, and excessive access permissions that accumulate over time. As data sprawls across cloud, SaaS, and on-premises environments, traditional perimeter security tools simply cannot provide the contextual visibility needed to manage data risk at scale.
According to Gartner, DSPM offers the visibility necessary for minimising data risk in an AI-driven environment. By automatically discovering, classifying, and monitoring sensitive data wherever it lives, DSPM enables organisations to move from reactive breach response to proactive risk management.
"Organisations encounter escalating threats from unstructured and structured data, AI systems, and excessive access permissions. DSPM offers the visibility necessary for minimising data risk in an AI-driven environment."
Gartner Market Guide for Data Security Posture Management, September 2025The Five Primary DSPM Use Cases
Gartner's Market Guide identifies five core use cases that DSPM solutions are designed to address. Each represents a distinct area of data risk that organisations must manage as data volumes and AI adoption continue to grow.
Data Loss Prevention
Discover and classify sensitive data to inform and enforce DLP policies across all environments and channels.
Privacy and Data Governance
Map regulated data across the organisation to satisfy privacy obligations and support governance frameworks.
Entitlement Management
Identify and remediate excessive access permissions to enforce least privilege across cloud and SaaS platforms.
Cloud Security Posture
Extend data security posture management into cloud infrastructure to identify and close misconfiguration risks.
DSPM for AI Protection
Secure sensitive data used in AI applications and generative AI workflows, preventing inadvertent exposure through AI models and training data.
What the Gartner Report Covers
The inaugural Market Guide goes beyond vendor recognition. It examines the mandatory and common capabilities that DSPM solutions must deliver, addresses key adoption obstacles organisations face when implementing DSPM programmes, and establishes practical criteria for evaluating AI security implementation.
Mandatory DSPM Capabilities
Gartner identifies core capabilities that any DSPM solution must provide, including automated data discovery across structured and unstructured data stores, accurate AI-driven classification, continuous monitoring of data access and movement, and risk prioritisation that guides remediation efforts effectively.
Adoption Obstacles
The report acknowledges real-world barriers to DSPM adoption, including the complexity of integrating with existing security tooling, the scale of data sprawl in modern enterprises, and the organisational challenge of aligning security, privacy, and compliance teams around a shared data risk framework.
Criteria for AI Security Implementation
As generative AI adoption accelerates, the report sets out how DSPM solutions should address the unique risks posed by AI systems accessing, training on, or generating sensitive data, helping organisations establish guardrails before exposure occurs.
Forcepoint's DSPM Approach
Forcepoint's recognition in this Market Guide reflects its broad portfolio of data security capabilities that collectively address the DSPM use cases Gartner identifies. The Forcepoint platform combines AI-native classification with continuous monitoring, behavioural analytics, and automated policy enforcement to deliver a unified data security posture across every environment.
The following Forcepoint solutions contribute to its DSPM recognition:
Together, these capabilities allow organisations to discover where sensitive data resides, understand who has access to it, monitor how it moves, and respond automatically when risk thresholds are exceeded, all from a single unified platform.
What This Means for Your Organisation
Gartner's inaugural DSPM Market Guide signals that data security posture management is no longer an emerging niche but a recognised, strategic discipline. For organisations still relying on traditional DLP or point-in-time data audits, the message is clear: visibility and continuous monitoring of data risk are now foundational requirements.
Whether your organisation is looking to reduce its exposure to insider threats, meet regulatory compliance obligations, or secure sensitive data flowing through AI and generative AI workflows, DSPM provides the foundation needed to understand and act on data risk at scale.
Explore Forcepoint's DSPM Capabilities
Speak with a GuardSense specialist to understand how Forcepoint's AI-Native DSPM and Data Security Cloud platform can help your organisation discover, classify, and protect sensitive data everywhere it lives.
Source: Gartner, "Market Guide for Data Security Posture Management," Joerg Fritsch, Brian Lowans, Andrew Bales, 17 September 2025. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner's research organisation and should not be construed as statements of fact.