What is Cloud Security?
Cloud Security is a set of tools, systems and best practices to protect applications, data, devices, infrastructure and more in a cloud environment. It addresses access control, encryption, monitoring, forensics and more to keep cloud-based assets safe from attackers. Cloud Security solutions include centralized management, user and device access control systems, anomaly detection and malware prevention tools, privileged account identification and management and more.
The primary challenge with cloud security is that data passes between on-premise and cloud environments over public networks, making it harder to enforce access control based on traditional data center network perimeters. Attacks can target multiple tenants on a single shared public server, and attackers are likely to leverage native cloud functions like cloud file-sharing or web content filtering to steal information from an unprotected interface.
In addition, many enterprises must rely on third-party cloud service providers to secure critical data and applications. These vendors typically provide standard cybersecurity tools as part of their services, but these often fail to cover all the requirements of in-house IT teams. Additionally, deploying automated Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) methods or serverless architectures such as Functions as a Service can create complex connectivity challenges that must be addressed with advanced security technology. Lastly, many companies must adhere to regulations such as HIPAA and PCI when storing sensitive data in the cloud, which requires additional controls and reporting capabilities beyond what is offered by CSPs. To address these concerns, companies need visibility into their cloud environments, a centralized management platform with high visibility and the ability to identify and manage multi-cloud security postures across all types of infrastructure including SaaS, IaaS, containers and serverless architectures.