What Is Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) & How to Do It

What Is Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)?

CSPM automates the identification and remediation of risks across your cloud assets, including Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Software as a Service (SaaS), and Platform as a Service (PaaS). CSPM is used for several levels of security management, including risk assessment, incident responses, compliance monitoring, and DevOps integration.

Background

Your cloud assets may connect to hundreds or even thousands of other assets that are located both in your secure private network or somewhere on the non-secure public internet. This dynamic nature makes cloud-based solutions very attractive but makes them difficult to secure. This difficulty level is increased because a traditional approach to network security doesn’t work in the cloud because there are no “walls” to protect your assets. Despite the inherent benefits of cloud computing, the question of whether or not to adopt it always remains.

In addition to general security concerns, given that your network is now located outside your own “walled" environment, misconfigurations of the cloud environment are contributing to the security risks. The 2022 Cloud Security Report by Check Point® Software Technologies Ltd., based on a survey of 775 cyber security professionals, revealed that 27% of cloud security incidents are due to misconfiguration, way ahead of issues like exposed data or account compromise.

Last but not least is the issue with visibility. Without a clear understanding of what is running in the cloud, vulnerabilities that could arise from, e.g., misconfigurations, remain undetected and will only become known when it is too late and a breach has already happened.

Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) addresses these issues by continuously monitoring risks in the cloud. By combining CSPM with Next-Gen Vulnerability Management, you will always be aware of such risks and how to close gaps in your attack surface.

Benefits of Combining Next-Gen Vulnerability Management & Cloud Security Posture Management into One View

Most cloud security programs solely focus on outside attacks and malicious insiders. However, misconfigurations, including limited visibility, are even more critical in, e.g., protecting against data leaks.

In a recent blog by WizCase, they identified a significant breach exposing several US cities. They discovered over 80 misconfigured Amazon S3 buckets holding data related to municipalities, totaling over 1,000 GB of data and over 1.6 million files.

Now, you can prevent such vulnerabilities by combining Next-Gen VM (Vulnerability Management) with CSPM, which provides unified visibility across multi-cloud environments instead of having to check multiple consoles and normalize data from various vendors, including how to fix misconfigurations.

We call this Cloud Scanning

At the same time, Cloud Scanning from Holm Security does not only do this once. It continuously monitors and assesses the environment for adherence to compliance policies. You can take corrective action immediately when a deviation is identified.

How Does Cloud Scanning from Holm Security Work?

Cloud Scanning provides discovery and visibility, misconfiguration management and remediation, and proactive threat detection as follows:

Discovery & Visibility

Cloud Scanning provides visibility into your cloud infrastructure and its security configurations. This gives you a single source of information across your cloud environments. Cloud assets, as well as resources used, are automatically discovered during the automated discovery scans, which also include the vulnerability assessment of such cloud infrastructure, including any misconfigurations and security settings that you may have presented through a unified view.

Misconfiguration Management & Remediation

Cloud Scanning minimizes your cyber security risks and accelerates the remediation process by comparing cloud application configurations to compliance policies to identify gaps quickly. The recommended remediations could include fixing misconfigurations, open IP ports, unauthorized modifications, and other issues that expose cloud resources.

Proactive Threat Detection

With Cloud Scanning, alerts are reduced by presenting you with areas most likely to be exploited through risk scoring. Vulnerabilities can then be prioritized, so misconfigurations are ultimately prevented from becoming a security risk.

Start Scanning Your Cloud Environment Today

With the introduction of Cloud Scanning from Holm Security, you will now be able to successfully identify security gaps across your cloud environment and adopt Cloud Security Posture Management to keep you safe from cybercriminals.

Want to protect your cloud environment? Don't worry, we'll help you get started.