Gartner® Navigating Security Posture Management: Selecting Cloud Security Tools That Truly Fit Your Needs

Enterprise networks are facing increasing numbers of risks, vulnerabilities, and threats in recent years. Some of the reasons include:

• Rapid cloud adoption creating complexity: Managing cloud estates across multiple cloud service providers (CSPs), datacenters, and locations creates visibility gaps and hard-to-spot dangers like lateral movement channels that challenge security teams’ ability to detect and remediate threats.

• AI adoption accelerating attacks: Attackers are using AI tools to adapt and refine their techniques ─ for example, using them to discover zero-day vulnerabilities or create sophisticated phishing campaigns.

These challenges drain security teams’ time, energy, and resources as they work to maintain visibility and control. Security leaders need to invest in the right tools and solutions to equip their teams to avoid alert fatigue and burnout, scale with the organization, and continue to keep their organizations’ data secure.

There are thousands of Security Posture Management (SPM) tools available, each with unique strengths and specializations, and every organization’s security needs are different. To guide teams to choose the right security solution for them rather than creating tool overlap, overspending, or leaving critical coverage gaps, we believe the Gartner® Navigating Security Posture Management: Selecting Cloud Security Tools That Truly Fit Your Needs report gives CISOs and other security leaders a roadmap of why these tools are necessary and what criteria they should meet.

Why Security Posture Management Tools (xSPMs) Are Necessary

When enterprises moved their networks to the cloud, security teams were no longer guarding the physical perimeter of on-premises environments. Instead, networks became distributed, dynamic, and much easier to infiltrate. The complexity of hybrid and multicloud environments, ephemeral workload types like Kubernetes and serverless, and attack vectors like phishing and credential theft make it impossible to detect, investigate, and remediate threats without the right xSPM (specialized Security Posture Management) tools.

To us, the report identifies key capabilities of xSPM tools, including:

• A complete inventory of your cloud estate

• Visibility into identity, permissions, and access

• Support for compliance with regulations related to data management, AI use, and more

The right xSPM tools empower you to maintain control over your network by helping you manage, evaluate, and troubleshoot effectively without leaving significant gaps, overlapping tool functionality, or overwhelming your security team members.

What Criteria Should Security Leaders Use to Evaluate xSPM Tools?

Security leaders who are evaluating xSPM tools are balancing different objectives: enhancing security and optimizing costs while avoiding slowing down development or introducing too much friction. No xSPM tool is a one-size-fits-all: security leaders must evaluate their unique security needs.

In our view, the report outlines the criteria for some of the leading xSPM products when it comes to coverage, integration points, compliance support, user experience, and more, categorized into six major areas:

• Cloud infrastructure

• Kubernetes security posture management (KSPMs)

• Data security posture management (DSPMs)

• Application security posture management (ASPMs)

• AI security posture management (AISPMs)

• SaaS security posture management (SSPMs)

AI/ML: Choosing the Right AISPM

One of the xSPM products covered, AISPM (Security Posture Management tools for AI platforms), is worth noting in light of rapid AI adoption and development. AI creates unique security challenges for enterprises:

AI workloads are short-lived, often over-privileged, and unpredictable, making them difficult to govern through traditional security policies.

Shadow AI, or the employee practice of adopting AI tools without the knowledge of their IT or security teams, can endanger enterprise networks because these solutions open a hidden backdoor into your network. The OWASP MCP Top 10, OWASP Top 10 for Agentic Applications, and OWASP Top 10 for Large Language Model Applications list security risks introduced by AI workloads such as prompt injection, tool poisoning, and insecure inter-agent communication.

The report explains that “AI security posture management (AISPM) provides visibility, governance, and risk management for AI/ML applications, models, data, and pipelines throughout their life cycle.” Its our view, the right AISPM tools help you cover areas such as:

• Automation and remediation – Does the AISPM alert you to issues like insecure configurations, prompt injection, or other suspicious behavior in your network?

• Compliance support – Does the AISPM provide you with the kind of documented control, visibility, and telemetry that regulations like the EU AI Act, NIST AI RMF, ISO 23894 mandate?

• User experience – Does the AISPM help all stakeholders, including AI engineering experts, legal teams, and executives, understand the state of your organization’s security posture when it comes to AI and ML?

Final Thoughts

The right xSPM tools are an investment to equip your team to manage network security policies, maintain compliance, simplify security operations, and avoid burnout. Download the report to learn more about what you should look for to find the right xSPM for your organization.

Navigating Security Posture Management: Selecting Cloud Security Tools That Truly Fit Your Needs, By Dale Koeppen and Charlie Winckless, 6 April 2026

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This graphic was published by Gartner, Inc. as part of a larger research document and should be evaluated in the context of the entire document. The Gartner document is available upon request from Aviatrix.