What is Cloud Security Posture Management: Uncovering Every Aspect!

Summary

Table of Contents

Introduction

Remember the jolt of hearing about Facebook’s 540 million exposed profiles in 2021 that sent a shiver down the spine, highlighting the precariousness of online data? But what if your business could dodge the next headline in a data breach scandal? Picture fortifying your cloud infrastructure with an impenetrable defense system, warding off cyber threats. Yes, with Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM), you can shield your digital empire from unseen dangers. This blog will cover everything you need to know about CSPM to help you safeguard your business from unforeseen threats.

What is Cloud Security Posture Management?

“Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) is the practice of managing the potential risks linked with public cloud infrastructure.”

It is the use of automated software tools to detect and solve security vulnerabilities within cloud infrastructure. Think of CSPM as a “building inspector” for cloud-hosted software. Here, CSPM tools automatically find and fix misconfigurations in cloud resources, aiming to minimize breaches and ensure compliance with regulations.

Understanding Cloud Security Posture Management

Cloud Security Posture Management involves enhancing visibility, identifying risks and misconfigurations, assessing posture, and enforcing compliance protocols in multi-cloud environments, including IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS. These solutions provide visibility and policy enforcement to mitigate overall risk in cloud-based systems and infrastructure.

Businesses typically use CSPM as a standard security measure when shifting their apps to cloud providers like AWS, Azure, or GCP. These tools support organizations by helping with various aspects of cloud security, following the shared responsibility model.

Have a look at what statistics state,

• Gartner estimates that “through 2025, 99% of cloud security failures will be the customer’s fault” through errors like configuration mistakes. This underscores the critical importance of proactive cloud security measures.
• In fact, the CSPM Report by MarketsandMarkets predicts a remarkable trajectory for the global CSPM market, forecasting its value to soar to $8.6 billion by 2027. This growth is anticipated to be fueled by a robust compound annual growth rate of 15.3% starting from 2022.
• Also, according to the IBM Cost of a Data Breach Report 2023, 82% of breaches involved data stored in the cloud; furthermore, organizations transitioning to the cloud face an added financial burden, with the mean data breach cost increasing by $218,362.

Evolution of CSPM

This table format provides a clear and concise comparison between present-day CSPM and traditional CSPM, making it easier to understand the evolution of Cloud security Posture Management capabilities over time.

Why is CSPM Important?

As companies adopt public cloud infrastructure, Cloud Security Posture Management becomes increasingly essential. While the cloud helps launch services and apps quickly, this transition leads to risky cloud setups known as cloud misconfigurations, which can lead to data breaches for not meeting regulatory standards. Here are the main reasons why organizations require CSPM.

Lack of Visibility & Security Blind spots

Enterprises often face challenges maintaining clear visibility across various cloud environments and computing platforms, including serverless, virtual machines, and containers. This lack of visibility can lead to significant issues such as data breaches, compliance violations, inaccurate performance assessments, and financial waste. To prevent these problems, organizations need thorough coverage of their IT environment to uncover potential risks, vulnerabilities, and misconfigurations. Using a Cloud Security Posture Management tool, security teams can gain visibility into cloud resources management, changes, risks, compliance issues, and other essential aspects.

Lack of Context and Prioritization

Cloud security tools, including older CSPM versions, can spot misconfigurations in cloud setups. However, without context, this detection may lack clarity. Robust CSPM solutions are crucial for offering context, enabling organizations to prioritize misconfigurations effectively. CSPM helps reduce alert fatigue by filtering out irrelevant alerts, focusing only on genuine cloud concerns.

Complaince Challenges / Complaince Obligations

Companies adopting cloud infrastructure must comply with PCI DSS, GDPR, SOC 2, and HIPAA regulations. Failure to maintain proper cloud settings can result in noncompliance, leading to fines, legal issues, and reputational damage. However, Cloud security Posture Management tools assist businesses in meeting these compliance requirements. They automatically check cloud configurations against regulatory standards, identifying violations and offering guidance on fixes. Some tools even generate compliance reports for quick audits.

Failure to comply with regulations can result in serious consequences. Have a look at how the mega giants paid penalties in such cases

Meta faced a fine of $1.3 billion in 2023 for compliance failures
Instagram was fined $445 million in 2022
Amazon received a fine of $887 million in 2021.

Operational Efficiency

Businesses are increasingly adopting agile methods like DevOps and CI/CD to maximize their cloud infrastructure. However, traditional security tools can clash with these approaches, as they may be slow to identify and fix security risks in fast-paced development environments.

CSPM assists in closing this divide by incorporating security at earlier stages of development, a concept referred to as “shifting left.” By providing developers with the right information and guidance to address security issues on their own, organizations can ship code quickly and securely.

Multi-cloud Complexity

Each cloud provider presents its own infrastructure setups and security frameworks, such as Amazon VPC and Azure VPN, each with its own specific features. Cloud providers regularly introduce new services, making it challenging for security teams to stay updated. CSPM tools help identify, consolidate, and standardize cloud provider services into a unified platform, simplifying things for security teams.

Poor Developer Experience

Gartner states, “Security teams are seen as slowing down modern DevOps-style development.” Modern Cloud Security Posture Management practices require collaboration between security teams, developers, and DevOps teams to fix misconfigurations. Traditional security tools weren’t designed for this, resulting in excessive low-risk alerts for developers. Modern CSPM tools prioritize misconfigurations and improve collaboration, enhancing security and developer productivity. Utilizing a CSPM solution is essential for securing cloud infrastructure and maintaining data privacy in cloud-native environments.

How Does CSPM Work: Major Capabilities

The diagram illustrates how Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) tools safeguard cloud infrastructure. These tools link up with cloud provider APIs to continually monitor and evaluate an organization’s cloud setups’ security stance.

1. Connect To Your Clouds

Cloud Security Posture Management solutions simplify security tasks by directly connecting with cloud provider APIs without needing extra agents or proxies. This agentless setup simplifies setup and management, ensuring effective posture management without any additional complications. Organizations can tailor access permissions in their CSPM tools, opting for read-only access for visibility or granting limited read-write permissions for both visibility and automated fixes. Moreover, CSPM providers usually support major cloud platforms such as AWS, Azure, and GCP, with some also covering other providers like Oracle, Alibaba, and IBM Cloud.

2. Get Visibility

Once connected, CSPM solutions leverage API-based connectivity to offer visibility into your cloud assets, configurations, audit trails (including configuration changes), network communications, and cloud events.

3. Identify Misconfigurations & Complaince Violations

CSPM tools include pre-configured checks, called policies, which compare your cloud resources and settings against security standards. These policies usually align with industry best practices (like CIS or MITRE ATT&CK) or regulatory requirements (such as PCI DSS or HIPAA). CSPM tools typically offer numerous policies covering various frameworks.

Whenever a configuration matches one of these policies, the CSPM tool flags it as a misconfiguration and notifies the security team.
Examples of Misconfigured Services

• The Amazon EC2 instance has IMDSv2 disabled.
• The Azure Kubernetes Service endpoint is publicly accessible.
• The GCP API key does not rotate every 90 days.

4. Detect Threats Continually

Detecting threats traditionally involves using proxies and agents to identify malware, network attacks, and data breaches. However, Cloud Security Posture Management tools enable security teams to identify active compromises using telemetry data from cloud providers, such as network traffic and event logs.

These tools continuously analyze logs and events, leveraging policies and sometimes artificial intelligence to detect anomalies and suspicious behavior. Certain CSPM solutions go as far as correlating incidents with the MITRE ATT&CK framework to improve visibility and prioritize potential threats.

For effective threat detection, CSPM tools require up-to-date threat intelligence and the ability to correlate anomalies across different types of threat data, including network traffic and user behavior analytics. This comprehensive approach provides a full context of potential risks.

5. Contextualize Risks

CSPM tools not only spot misconfigurations and compliance gaps but also prioritize risks like vulnerabilities, overly permissive access, and active threats. Using advanced technology, they connect these issues to identify potential attack paths, helping security teams focus on the most critical issues first.

Have a look at an example of CSPM with the Risk Content Mentioned

6. Remediate Issues

At a basic level, CSPM tools offer clear guidance on how to fix misconfigurations, promoting better teamwork between security and other teams responsible for these issues.

Additionally, CSPM solutions should link up with external systems like SIEM, SOAR, ticketing systems, and collaboration tools like Slack. This ensures that security alerts and feedback on fixing issues reach the appropriate teams promptly. Moreover, some CSPM platforms allow for automatic fixes to violations, speeding up the response to security issues.

Have a look at an example of remediation steps for a misconfiguration

7. Monitor and Report

Security teams should see fewer risks as they fix cloud misconfigurations over time. Cloud Security Posture Management tools include reporting features to help teams track their progress and share updates with stakeholders. For organizations using regulated apps on the public cloud, CSPM can answer questions like:

• Am I meeting compliance requirements?
• What part of my setup is compliant?
• Which areas need fixing?

Cloud Security Posture Management solutions create easy-to-read reports. With just a click, teams can generate a PDF report showing compliance with standards like PCI DSS v4.0. These reports can be shared with compliance experts for audits or with developers to prioritize fixes.

CSPM Vs. Other Solutions

Some standard security measures are similar to or overlap with Cloud Security Posture Management.

CASB and CSPM

In the cybersecurity landscape, Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB) solutions act as gatekeepers, overseeing the flow of network data to and from cloud services and SaaS applications to safeguard sensitive information.

Meanwhile, Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) directs its attention to fortifying the configuration of cloud infrastructure. Unlike CASB, CSPM tools do not intervene in network traffic or manage SaaS applications directly.

Cloud Security and CSPM

Cloud security involves more than just CSPM, as it encompasses safeguarding applications, data, identities, networks, and infrastructure within cloud environments. CSPM specifically focuses on finding and fixing misconfigurations in cloud infrastructure. Many organizations start with CSPM when they begin using the cloud and see it as a crucial initial step for ensuring cloud security.

CNAPP and CSPM

A Cloud-native Application Protection Platform (CNAPP), a concept introduced by Gartner, refers to an integrated suite of cloud security and compliance tools. It’s designed to secure cloud-native applications from development to production.

Key features of CNAPP include:

• Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)
• Cloud Workload Protection Platform (CWPP)
• Code Security
• Web Application and API Security (WAAS)
• Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM)
• Data Security Posture Management (DSPM)

These features provide security teams with a complete view of their public cloud infrastructure throughout the application development process. Most organizations start with Cloud Security Posture Management when they first adopt a CNAPP during their cloud journey.

CWPP and CSPM

Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) are designed to shield different types of cloud computing instances, including hosts (like Linux and Windows), containers (such as Kubernetes), and serverless functions (like Amazon Lambda), from potential security threats. These platforms prioritize tasks like managing vulnerabilities, ensuring compliance, and providing real-time protection for these computing instances.

In contrast, Cloud Security Posture Management tools are specifically tailored to pinpointing and resolving misconfigurations within cloud infrastructure.

CIEM and CSPM

While CSPM enhances visibility, governance, and compliance by focusing on cloud resource configurations, it often lacks robust identity controls and access governance. This is where cloud infrastructure entitlement management (CIEM) comes into play.

CIEM tools specialize in identifying risks related to cloud identities and managing permissions to access cloud infrastructure. When integrated, CSPM and CIEM technologies can efficiently manage the cloud infrastructure’s security posture by addressing configuration and entitlement management aspects.

SIEM and CSPM

Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) is a cybersecurity hub that gathers security incidents from diverse IT sources, such as cloud platforms, networks, and user identities. Its core task is to pinpoint and address potential threats swiftly.

Conversely, Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) identifies security vulnerabilities within cloud infrastructure. Numerous CSPM solutions streamline the transfer of insights to SIEM tools, facilitating harmonious collaboration between the two systems enabling deeper analysis and quicker responses to potential security challenges.

DPSM and CSPM

Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) focuses on protecting sensitive data stored in cloud environments. It employs methods such as identifying data, categorizing it, and implementing governance measures.

While both DSPM and CSPM offer visibility, identify misconfigurations, and assist with compliance, their focus areas differ. CSPM centers on configuring cloud infrastructure, while DSPM secures the data stored within the cloud.

Conclusion

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What is HIPAA?

HIPAA, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, safeguards medical records and health information. The HHS Office for Civil Rights and state attorneys general enforce it, and violations can result in fines up to $1.5 million per year.

What is security friction?

Security friction refers to how much cloud security hinders an organization’s operations.

Why do cloud misconfigurations occur?

Cloud misconfigurations happen due to intricate architectures, quick scaling, IT skill shortages, insufficient protection in agile strategies, limited visibility, and security measures lacking context.