Tribal Nations, health centers, casinos, and their enterprises are increasingly being targeted by threat actors due to the highly sensitive nature of the data they manage. From tribal membership records and Social Security numbers to sovereign assets like language documentation and cultural artwork, this data represents not just personal and financial information, but the very identity and heritage of Tribal communities.
As more Tribal Nations embrace cloud services and AI tools to drive efficiency and collaboration, their digital footprint grows, along with the complexity of protecting their data. Sensitive information now moves faster and further than ever, increasing exposure and making it harder to track and secure.
To help Tribal Nations protect what matters most and build long-term cyber resilience, we created this practical guide to Data Security Posture Management (DSPM), which offers clear strategies for identifying, monitoring, and securing sensitive data across modern IT environments.
What is Data Security Posture Management (DSPM)?
DSPM provides visibility as to where sensitive data is, who has access to that data, how it has been used, and what the security posture of the data stored or the application is. DSPM does this by:
- Automatically identifying (not sampling) and classifying every single instance of sensitive data at the file level across all data stores, whether in the cloud or on-prem (PII, PCI, CJIS, HIPAA, financial data, enrollment documentation, historical records, etc.)
- Mapping user identity, access, permissions, and activity on all sensitive data where it lives
- Understanding risk and vulnerabilities, such as open or over-permissive access, misconfigurations, sensitive links containing sensitive data, stale access, or third-party app exposure, with a means to fix these exposures automatically and continuously
- Monitoring sensitive data 24x7 for threats and utilizing incremental scanning for real-time data security posture visibility
Why is DSPM important for Tribal Nations?
From the sensitive nature of data stored in tribal nation and commercial venture environments to compliance and keeping up with an evolving threat and data landscape, DSPM has never been more critical for tribal governments to enable.
Safeguarding sovereign tribal data
Tribal Nations are stewards of deeply sensitive and culturally significant data, including tribal language documentation and artwork, family histories, membership IDs, enrollment data, and other forms of intellectual property.
Unfortunately, tribal organizations have increasingly become targets of ransomware attacks, resulting in the permanent loss of irreplaceable historical records and creating devastating gaps in cultural continuity.
Protecting this data is not just a matter of cybersecurity — it is a matter of preserving legacy and legal autonomy. This starts with classifying sovereign tribal data as sensitive, understanding who is utilizing this data, reducing exposures, and ensuring real-time alerting when threats emerge.
Growing attack surfaces
As Tribal Nations increasingly adopt cloud services and AI tools to enhance collaboration and efficiency, the volume and velocity of sensitive data movement have surged. This rapid expansion has created a growing “blast radius”— the spread of sensitive data across environments and users — which makes it significantly harder for IT teams to manage and secure.
The difficulty of identifying and mitigating overexposures leaves gaps in security posture, allowing the blast radius to grow unchecked. As a result, Tribal Nations become increasingly vulnerable to a wider range of attack vectors, putting sovereign and culturally significant data at risk.
Compliance
Tribal Nations face ongoing scrutiny through both internal and external audits of their sensitive data environments. These organizations must navigate a complex landscape of regulatory requirements.
For example, Tribal governments that manage federal contracting information or Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) must adhere to CMMC standards. Health centers are responsible for maintaining compliance with HIPAA and PII regulations, while casinos must meet financial and data protection requirements such as PCI, GDPR, and CCPA, in addition to regular financial audits.
Without DSPM, Tribal Nations risk failing audits, not meeting compliance, losing Department of Defense contracts, being denied cyber insurance coverage, and inadvertently exposing sensitive tribal data to threats.
Real-time visibility into sensitive data
A core pillar of DSPM is the ability to continuously monitor sensitive data and the users interacting with it — 24 hours a day, 365 days a year — directly at the data level and in the location where it resides.
This real-time visibility ensures that when a threat emerges, whether internal or external, tribal organizations can quickly detect malicious behavior and respond effectively. It also empowers Tribal Nations to answer critical questions like: Was my data breached? Was the compromised data sensitive?
With the rapid growth of cyber threats, tribal nations' expanding digital footprints, and increasing pressure to meet compliance standards, having a clear and current view of your data security posture is no longer optional — it’s essential to safeguarding tribal sovereignty and ensuring long-term resilience.
Inheritance of access/permissions on sensitive data
As individuals in Tribal Nations transition between roles across health centers, casinos, and other institutions, they accumulate new permissions without revoking access from previous roles — leaving sensitive data vulnerable to internal threats. This concern also extends to external entities, such as contractors, whose access to sensitive data may persist even after their contracts have ended.
Tribal Nations need real-time visibility into over-permissive access. This includes visibility into organization-wide access, stale or lingering permissions, external exposure, misconfigurations, and nested group structures.
Renita DiStefano, CEO and Founder of Second Derivative, is a former CIO/CISO for a multi-property Tribal Gaming and Hospitality enterprise, and a pioneer in the Tribal IT space. Renita emphasized that two of the most sensitive data types for Tribal Nations are enrollment data and cultural artifact data, including Tribal language.
Renita also highlighted the risk of misconfigurations and nested groups that allow excessive access to sensitive data like tribal language documentation. She asserts that it is imperative for Tribal Nations to exercise Tribal and data sovereignty through intentional application of data security practices.
By leveraging DSPM’s pillars, Tribal Nations can safeguard their most sensitive assets, ensuring visibility and control over data exposure and posture.
How Varonis helps Tribal Nations with DSPM
The Varonis Data Security Platform was named the leader in Gartner’s DSPM, Insider Risk Management, and File Analysis markets. Varonis is also the 2025 Forrester Wave Leader for data security platforms.
With a robust suite of features designed to protect sensitive data, detect threats, and ensure compliance, Varonis empowers Tribal Nations to build lasting cyber resilience and safeguard their digital sovereignty.
Automatic identification and classification of sensitive data
A complete DSPM solution should be capable of automatically scanning an organization’s entire environment to identify and classify sensitive data based on its type — whether it’s PII, HIPAA-regulated information, CUI, Tribal Membership IDs, Casino Rewards Numbers, or other critical data categories.
DSPM replaces outdated scanning methods like predictive scanning and sampling with incremental scanning, offering a real-time, complete view of where sensitive data resides, who can access it, and how it’s used.
Equally important to real-time visibility is the ability to monitor all data stores across the environment, on-prem and in the cloud. For many Tribal Nations, proving compliance requires demonstrating that every instance of sensitive data is being scanned and monitored. A DSPM solution must support this level of coverage and provide detailed reporting to satisfy auditors and regulatory requirements.
Data posture and exposure analysis
A comprehensive DSPM solution should also go beyond simply classifying sensitive data. Varonis provides deep visibility into your environment by mapping who has access to sensitive data, what permission levels they hold (open, move, modify, delete, admin, etc.), how users interact with that sensitive data, and where exposures exist, such as misconfigurations or over-permissive access.
This holistic view is essential for understanding and securing your data landscape.
Automation and remediation
Rather than simply revealing your data security posture and areas of overexposure, Varonis automatically reduces excessive access and maintains a state of least privilege across Tribal Nations.
Varonis also streamlines other aspects of DSPM with automation, such as labeling classified sensitive data to remove the burden from individual users, and automation reporting to support compliance across Tribal Nations and their affiliated ventures.
By integrating these capabilities, Tribal Nations can ensure consistent protection of sensitive data while reducing operational overhead and human error.
Data level alerts
Despite the deployment of perimeter defenses like firewalls, network security tools, and Data Loss Prevention (DLP) systems, attackers continue to bypass these layers with increasingly sophisticated techniques. The reality is that traditional security measures often fall short when it comes to protecting the data itself.
Don't wait for a breach to occur.
DSPM empowers Tribal Nations to focus on the data: understanding where it lives, who has access, how it’s being used, and where vulnerabilities exist.
Shifting to a data-centric strategy is critical to ensure the integrity and protection of cultural, enrollment, and operational data. Robbers aren’t after the pens in the bank — they are after the money in the vaults. Similarly, today's threats aren’t attempting to compromise the network; they are after the data that resides within it.
For Tribal Nations, adopting a data-centric approach through DSPM is essential to safeguarding their most sensitive information. It’s no longer enough to build moats around the castle — we must secure the castle itself.
