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The best Cloud Security Posture Management vendors with features like threat detection, compliance monitoring, and automated remediation.
What is cloud security posture management?
Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) technologies and techniques monitor and improve cloud security. CSPM’s main purpose is to help businesses detect, assess, and mitigate cloud system risks and vulnerabilities. However, CSPM maintains a comprehensive perspective by continuously monitoring and controlling protection settings belonging to different resources located outside of normal jurisdiction, whereas standard protection systems typically execute measures locked within specific parameters on an ongoing basis. The process of assessing cloud ecosystems in relation to safety best practices is carried out automatically using CSPM instruments. They also offer advice and insights to help businesses increase the security of their cloud and ensure that their cloud assets are configured correctly.
How CSPM works?
Finding and cataloguing an organization’s cloud assets, regularly assessing them against pre-existing security and compliance frameworks, and offering tools and automation to promptly detect and address risks and vulnerabilities are all ways that CSPM solutions operate.
Automated discovery and continuous monitoring
Security teams may encounter issues with visibility when dealing with dispersed cloud components and multiple cloud providers. In order to solve this problem, CPSM automatically finds all cloud services and application components in the hybrid multicloud environment of the company, along with the configurations, metadata, security settings, and other details related to all public and private cloud services and cloud providers (such as Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, IBM Cloud, and Microsoft Azure).
All cloud resources and assets are found in real time as they are deployed with CSPM’s ongoing monitoring. Everything may be managed and observed by security teams from a single dashboard.
Manage and fix misconfigurations
By continuously comparing configurations to industry and organisational benchmarks, such as those from the Centre for Internet Security (CIS), National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST), and the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO), as well as the organization’s own benchmarks and security policies, CSPM tools keep an eye out for misconfigurations. In addition to automation features for fixing some misconfigurations without the need for human intervention, CSPM solutions usually include guided cloud configuration repair.
Other vulnerabilities, such holes in data access rights that hackers could use to obtain private information, are also tracked and fixed by CSPM. To expedite cleanup and avoid misconfigurations in subsequent deployments, the majority of CSPM solutions connect with DevOps/DevSecOps tools.
Compliance monitoring
CSPM tools offer continuous compliance monitoring to help organisations comply with GDPR, HIPAA, and PCI DSS and spot potential infractions.
Real-time threat detection
Cloud security and compliance concerns are identified by CSPM systems, which also keep an eye on the entire environment for suspicious or malicious activities. Threat intelligence is used to prioritise alerts and identify threats. In order to gather context and insights for better threat detection and incident response, the majority of CSPM solutions interact with security technologies like security information and event management (SIEM).
Why is CSPM Important?
In a setting where cloud computing is essential, the importance of CSPM cannot be emphasised enough. Here’s the explanation:
Cloud environments’ complexity
Because of the numerous services, configurations, and approvals, cloud ecosystems are dynamic and complex. It is challenging to manually verify that suitable and compliant security configurations exist as a result of this complex situation.
Risks of Misconfiguration
One of the most frequent reasons for cloud security vulnerabilities is misconfiguration. Organisations utilise the CPM tools to identify and fix these kinds of setup errors that could jeopardise their resources hosted on these platforms.
Requirements for Compliance
Many organisations are required to adhere to strict industry and regulatory requirements. By ensuring that cloud environments comply with regulations, CSPM helps to prevent unanticipated legal and financial consequences.
Monitoring
CSPM essentially provides continuous cloud surveillance to detect and address security issues as they arise. Because a particular cloud’s environment is dynamic, regular updates are also guaranteed. As a result, it aids in preventing breaches before they occur.
Features CSPM
The need to protect highly complex and mobile cloud ecosystems will lead to a revolutionary approach to Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM). What to anticipate is as follows:
AI and Automation
Future developments in Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) will be significant, primarily due to automation and artificial intelligence (AI). AI will enhance threat detection by looking for patterns and abnormalities in vast amounts of data, and automated systems will make responding to security crises easier.
Compliance
The process will be streamlined by using CSPM solutions for compliance management since they will automate inspections and offer real-time observation, guaranteeing adherence to regulations like GDPR and HIPAA. In this manner, businesses will be able to easily maintain their regulations up to date.
Visibility
Cloud environments would be more understandable with CSPM tools, which will enhance comprehension of setups and data flows and provide context-based recommendations for every security need. Identifying and controlling potential risks will be simpler.
Integration
One security framework is created when you integrate with additional safety solutions, such as CWPPs or SIEMs. The cooperation of various tools and methods will strengthen the overall security measures.
Multi-Cloud Support
Support for hybrid and multi-cloud environments would be crucial since CSPM resources would ensure consistent security across all cloud locations and provide the comprehensive perspective required for the administration of numerous complex cloud systems.
Cloud security posture management vendors
Here are some cloud security posture management (CSPM) vendors:
The Prisma Cloud
A platform that keeps an eye on security teams’ assets, behaviours, and threats and gives them insights. It can make compliance easier and make multi-cloud security less complicated.
Falcon Cloud Security by CrowdStrike
A supplier that offers a comprehensive strategy for threat identification, mitigation, and response.
Verify Point CloudGuard
A platform that evaluates the security posture of an organisation and shows the location and effectiveness of security controls.
CloudGuard Posture Control
A solution for cloud-native environments that manages compliance posture and cloud security. It automates governance, compliance, and security.
Cloud Apps with Microsoft Defender
A service that provides ongoing Software as a Service SaaS application monitoring and evaluation. Risks like incorrect setups and unauthorised access can be detected by it.
Trend Micro Security Solution for Hybrid Clouds
A comprehensive solution that aids businesses in fulfilling their cloud security needs.
Cloud Security with BMC Helix
A cloud service provider configuration scanner for AWS, GCP, and Azure services in a CSPM tool.
Cyscale
A solution that lets businesses see and comprehend the security posture of their cloud infrastructure by offering cloud security mapping capabilities.
You can think about things like context in threat detection and risk prioritisation, automated compliance checks, continuous monitoring and automation, and complete visibility into your cloud estate when selecting a CSPM vendor.
CSPM Capabilities
A variety of features are available in CSPM solutions that are intended to improve cloud security. Among the most noteworthy are:
Configuration Evaluation
The Control Systems Project Management (CSPM) tools continuously evaluate cloud setups against industry standards and security benchmarks to identify incorrect settings that could put users at danger.
Visualisation of Risk
Dashboards and visualisations that display cloud security conditions, highlighting areas of concern and potential threats, are some examples of these tools.
Monitoring Compliance
By adopting CSPM systems, which automatically verify compliance and give reports that serve as proof of conformance to multiple standards, including GDPR, HIPAA, and PCI-DSS, organisations can maintain compliance with regulatory compliance obligations.
Automated Cleanup
Due to automation, a lot of CSPM products now include remediation options that let businesses react quickly and address security vulnerabilities without requiring human intervention.
Reaction to the incident
CSPM solutions can assist incident response teams in examining and resolving potential risks by offering comprehensive logs and notifications on security occurrences.