The future of cloud security is dictated as much by the technology rising across the magic quadrants as the adversaries infringing upon businesses and corporate networks. Understanding the blend of legacy and innovative technical solutions, diverse companies’ security constraints and industry regulations are increasingly giving light to new methods and approaches to enhancing security and creating the fundamental processes in place to demand business continuity.
Below, we’ll outline some of the leading trends in Cloud security, critical technology which is defining the face and future of IT management as well as some of the leading market segments taking center stage in the fight to secure the cloud.
Up and coming technologies and sectors
Cloud security is inextricably linked to the dynamic and rapidly evolving technology solutions and sectors created to mitigate its risk and present enhanced data visibility. While all have arisen from decades of complex technical tasks, in recent years these new categories are centralizing and analyzing data at a level unheard of just a few short years ago.
With upwards of 92% of organizations hosting their data on the cloud, the need to enhance security and create essential layers of protection has never been higher. To address the increased focus on cloud security, two major categories appear to be leading the way in simplifying data visualization and providing clear mitigation value for system admins.
- CSPM
According to Gartner: “Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) is a market segment for IT security tools that are designed to identify misconfiguration issues and compliance risks in the cloud. An important purpose of CSPM programming is to continuously monitor cloud infrastructure for gaps in security policy enforcement.”
CSPM solutions assist IT professionals in identifying and mitigating often complex cybersecurity risks across the cloud. By unifying and centralizing many cloud-based security and management tools CSPM can effectively analyze configurations to detect potential security issues and fix misconfigurations before hackers can exploit them.
- CIEM
Cybersecurity analysts and increasingly looking towards the rise of CIEM technology to meet this strategic need, with businesses investing in the segment with CIEM components being incorporated to manage cloud-based entitlement risk. CIEM is filling a gap that legacy and other cloud security solutions do not address.
Simply put, CIEM tools enable enterprises to manage their cloud access risks more effectively through the governance of entitlements in hybrid and multi-cloud IaaS. What differentiates CIEM from its component parts is its capability to blend machine learning (ML) and other methods to detect anomalies in account entitlements in real-time to provide remediation of privileges and policy enforcement all in one process.
ROI and risk in cloud security
Cloud security is the result of effectively implemented firewalls and constant penetration testing. It is the realization of obfuscation, tokenization, and the use of virtual private networks (VPN) to build a significant barrier from attack while maintaining cloud-based assets security against attacks. While, in practice the more element you add the more complex the process becomes, regarding new management categories and the centralization of data in the cloud, some very clear ROI has already begun to be realized.
CIEM and CSPM systems provide value in:
- Minimizing the impact of human error through automation and entitlement management
- Centralizing visibility of cloud-based functions
- Tracking thousands of identities with seamless integration and access of data points
- Providing a process for detecting and rectifying anomalies
- Remediating excessive entitlements and configuration risk
Key takeaways
Cloud security is not a buzzword or catchphrase being pushed by IT to build fear and garner resources. It is the lifeblood of most companies’ data management strategy, and it is mission-critical for the continuity of any business with resources in the cloud.
According to the 2020 IDG Cloud Computing survey: “Cloud adoption levels that have held steady since 2015 have accelerated in the last two years with 81% of survey respondents reported already using computing infrastructure or having applications in the cloud, compared to 73% in 2018.”
With cloud adoption taking center stage, and the risks that go along with cloud migration and security going closely in hand the need has arisen for new market segments to provide previously disconnected tools a central role in visualizing data and mitigating risk. Through the use of CIEM and CSPM solutions, organizations with data on the cloud can now bring their data together, mitigate cyber risk and human error to simplify data management on the cloud.
Working as a cyber security solutions architect, Alisa focuses on application and network security. Before joining us she held a cyber security researcher positions within a variety of cyber security start-ups. She also experience in different industry domains like finance, healthcare and consumer products.
