Embracing Holistic Cloud Security: Achieving Automated, Continuous Compliance

As more organizations migrate their operations to the cloud, they also find themselves dealing with the complexities of the modern cloud security landscape. Cloud identity and access management(IAM), object storage, and API keys can be tricky to navigate, and misconfigurations prove to be expensive. Expert insights cloud statistics reveal that 80% of businesses experienced a cloud security incident in the past year alone, with average data breach costs reaching a staggering US$3.8 million. Financial penalties were incurred for everything from fines for failed audits to loss of business due to system downtime, massive crypto jacking bills, and compliance violations.

Why do cloud attacks happen?

While external threat actors play a significant role in cloud security breaches, vulnerabilities often stem from mistakes. Verizon’s 2023 report found that 74% of all security incidents could be traced to human errors like misconfigurations and lack of system knowledge. Irrespective of their promises, existing cloud security systems do not support security teams as they navigate increasing security complexities. They are helpful in the early stages of cloud adoption but present a range of limitations in today’s complex and fast-paced digital environment.

Reactive nature

Traditional cloud security models often focus on addressing threats after they have occurred. They rely on monitoring systems to alert teams of breaches but can generate thousands of daily alerts. The large number of false positives is overwhelming and results in genuine alerts—like those for publicly exposed resources, attack paths, and lateral movement—falling through the cracks.

Fragmented solutions

Conventional security solutions often take a piecemeal approach, addressing different cloud security needs with separate solutions. For instance, one tool might manage firewalls, another for identity and access management, and another for encryption. This fragmentation leads to a lack of visibility across the organization’s cloud environment. It results in security coverage gaps, inconsistencies in compliance, and difficulties in managing and integrating different systems.

Limited scalability

Traditional security solutions struggle to keep pace with the rapid scalability that characterizes cloud environments. A traditional data center typically has centralized controls at every interconnection. The security system analyzes and verifies all traffic before allowing it to proceed. Unfortunately, such a security system creates performance bottlenecks and rapidly increases bandwidth costs as cloud infrastructure scales.

What is holistic cloud security, and how does it help?

Holistic cloud security is a comprehensive approach that considers all aspects of cloud security as an interconnected whole. It integrates security at every layer of the cloud – from the infrastructure and application to data and access points. Holistic cloud security goes beyond protecting against individual threats to establishing a secure ecosystem that adapts and responds to the ever-changing digital landscape.

With holistic cloud security, you can:

• Identify all misconfigurations in the cloud environment but prioritize risks with context-aware reporting.
• Scan VMs, Serverless Functions, and Containers to detect vulnerabilities, exposed secrets, and sensitive information.
• Continuously assess your compliance posture using built-in compliance frameworks or custom compliance checks.
• Integrate security at every stage of your application lifecycle from development through the CI/CD workflow.

The holistic approach leverages artificial intelligence to manage routine tasks, detect anomalies, and report them with contextual awareness. For instance, the system presents alerts alongside detailed information about why an issue needs to be addressed, what is at risk, and what needs to be done for remediation.

What is Plerion?

Plerion combines the capabilities of existing, diverse cloud security solutions into a unified, holistic security platform. For instance, it includes the following capabilities:

• Cloud Workload Protection Platform (CWPP)
• Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)
• Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM),
• Data Security Posture Management (DSPM),
• Kubernetes Security Posture Management (KSPM),
• API Security,
• Shift Left,
• Cloud Detection and Response (CDR)

It presents information in a context-rich, adaptive security graph that provides a single-pane-of-glass view of your organization’s security posture across AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and other cloud providers. You can detect, prioritize, and remediate cloud risks based on impact and likelihood rather than just best practices.

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