The number of organizations using cloud solutions is growing in leaps and bounds, leading many security teams to contend with the massive number of cloud assets, security alerts and compliance responsibilities. Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) can provide an uninterrupted view of risks in the cloud, and even better results can be reached if CSPM system is used together with Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) and Security Orchestration, Automation and Response (SOAR) systems.
Utilization of these three systems combined will enable an organization to obtain a comprehensive security setting with ability to identify attacks resulting from installation of wrong settings, relate all security events together and automatically launch appropriate response actions.
While CSPM, SIEM, and SOAR processes boost the security of systems, their role when used together is quite different from the others. CSPM is mainly responsible for scanning the cloud environment for vulnerabilities, compliance issues, excess permissions leading to risky storage methods, and other related weaknesses. SIEM is responsible for collecting and analyzing data logs from devices, systems, applications, firewalls, and identity tools that help one to track the time of unusual activity with the use of either event correlation or threat analysis. In addition to the listed above, SOAR technology helps to automate security processes thanks to the uniting of various tools, as well as providing reduced time for incident response and resolution.
Most cloud breaches are caused by very simple errors, such as accidentally having a storage bucket privacy turned on or misconfigured IAM privileges. A Cloud Security Posture Management service (CSPM) can track down and identify these weaknesses before they can be taken advantage of. Instead of waiting for some kind of suspicious action to take place, organizations can fix the problems beforehand.
When SIEM systems deliver alerts regarding incidents that have happened in the organization’s IT environment, cloud-related alerts can only remain useful if the data related to cloud technologies is integrated into the system. Otherwise, the person working on the security incident will not have the necessary context to determine whether the incident is critical enough to pay attention to. In other words, CSPM data being integrated into SIEM means better situational awareness regarding the whole cloud environment.
The process of resolving cloud security issues through manual means can be incredibly time-consuming for security analysts. Implementing SOAR systems is an effective way to make the task of performing repetitive cloud security checks less of a burden for security professionals because SOAR programs can execute automated responses in the event of any high-risk incidents or alerts.
For instance, in the case of a critical security vulnerability identified by CSPM, SOAR can automate the necessary protocols – bringing down the affected service on public access, turning off the service posing a risk to the system, notifying the security team, and recording the events of the incident. In such a way, the time and efforts of personnel that would otherwise have to take care of the incident manually with one operation being handled at a time are saved.
Businesses that work with cloud services must adhere to different regulations from governing bodies, like ISO 27001, SOC 2, PCI DSS, HIPAA, GDPR, and CIS standards, among others.
So, for ensuring that the cloud solution really fulfills those regulations, a cloud security posture management solution (CSPM) acts in accordance with the principles, while a security information and event management (SIEM) solution provides the data and records on the business operation of this company, and a security orchestration and automated response (SOAR) tool assists with the compliance, both by facilitating the audits and the follow-up activities.
Cloud environments invariably evolve onwards, as they constantly adopt new features like workloads, containers, APIs, and infrastructure assets. That means the mere reliance on periodic checks on compliance is not enough anymore, and organizations should use CSPM, SIEM, and SOAR technologies together to organize ongoing cloud protection practices and track posture changes, collect compliance regulations notifications from different systems, and react to issues whenever malicious acts happen.
Often, security specialists are utilizing hundreds of standalone applications and platforms with an insane amount of data and bizarre inconveniences caused by reporting. Fortunately, the use of CSPM together with SIEM and SOAR allows us to dramatically ease this process and deal with a range of information security problems in terms of data loss.
Cloud security goes beyond merely identifying weaknesses. To be effective in securing the cloud, one must also have visibility, some degree of intelligence, and a quick reaction time. Cloud security posture management mainly looks at issues of misconfigurations and posture-related risks, but it is security information and event management that allows live attacks to be detected and security activities to be automated. Combination of these products allows organizations to reduce overall cloud risk, increase operational efficiency, improve compliance, as well as create a solid and effective security program for safeguarding contemporary cloud systems.
Ancrew Global Services helps organizations improve their cloud security through deployment of Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM), SIEM integration, SOAR automation, cloud security assessments, Security Baseline Reviews, Vulnerability Assessment and Penetration Testing (VAPT), and ongoing security monitoring.