The term security encompasses more than just protecting a company. A holistic security strategy supports all business processes up to DevOps projects instead of restricting them. To implement a holistic cloud strategy, suitable security tools must be integrated and responsibilities assigned to avoid misunderstandings, and to be able to defend the complex cloud environments against cyberattacks. Complexity is increasing as more and more companies realize that a single cloud environment is not the right approach in the long run. Whether private or public, every cloud service offers different tools and options, from advanced machine learning tools to low prices for storage space.
For most companies, this means that sooner or later, they will pursue a cloud strategy that takes a multi-cloud environment into account. This requires a uniform security platform that performs security controls and compliance for hosts and containers in an automated form, regardless of the cloud provider or the deployment model used, to meet the requirements of DevOps and the various clouds. For cloud security to succeed, companies should consider three key components: unification, automation, and integration.
Cloud Strategy: Standardization Of Security Solutions
If you look at today’s security situation, you see that the threat actors are the same, but the environment that needs to be protected has changed significantly. Traditional security tools cannot save a cloud because they were not developed for dynamic cloud environments and have gaps in visibility and security. And even if they have been retrofitted, they have become unusable for the types of attacks targeting cloud environments. Overcoming these current cybersecurity challenges is untenable for security teams who want to keep up with the realities of a cloud-native world with selective solutions.
When the limitations of these stand-alone products become obvious, this often leads to ad hoc approaches aimed at fixing blind spots and a lack of integration. The solution is simple: Protect the cloud by using the cloud. A cloud-native security platform is the best way to eliminate the gaps in invisibility and scale it to the needs of a company, from containers to microservices.
Armed with full visibility and continuous workload detection, these platforms support vulnerability identification efforts and ultimately help DevOps teams weave security into CI / CD workflows so that issues can be resolved before they reach production. IT security needs to keep pace with DevOps and work across all clouds to maintain security and visibility as workloads are moved to be truly effective.
Automation Is Critical To Any Cloud Strategy
Another characteristic of a multi-cloud environment is its fast pace. A good example of the dynamics of a cloud environment is microservices, which can be set up quickly and are often very short-lived. Therefore, companies need to know which processes are being carried out where and who is carrying them out. This is where automated detection and monitoring of assets come into play. Companies can use it to get an overview of everything without slowing down a business process.
By interlinking security with CI / CD, the guarantee can be increased by enabling a “shift left” approach. Thanks to automation, the security system can be orchestrated more effectively to remedy weaknesses and security risks early in the development life cycle. However, care must ensure that security gaps are not introduced using Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) templates. Automation prevents security from being an obstacle for developers. Instead, it reduces complexity and enables rapid deployment, providing organizations with the visibility and security orchestration needed.
Integrated Security Solutions Are Scalable
When a company renews its security strategy, it is important to consider that it cannot work in isolation, especially when working with DevOps. Its integration enables the security department to work seamlessly with applications, cloud instances and cloud workloads. Only the integration turns an average security strategy into an effective one. When examining non-cloud-native tools, it becomes clear that they are not designed to protect dynamic cloud environments.
The latter are often not optimized for cloud-native applications and make monitoring more difficult. They also require additional manual intervention. In contrast, cloud-native solutions offer consistency across the entire cloud environment and maintain the level of security and compliance without incurring as much overhead as on-premise tools that were previously relied on.
Cloud Strategy: More Transparency And Control Through A Security Platform
Only the interaction of the three components described above results in a cloud strategy, including a security platform that can support companies in their growth. Cloud-native security platforms offer visibility and control across public, private, hybrid and multi-cloud environments. Complemented by automation, this enables security teams to focus on more important tasks instead of identifying cloud misconfigurations that can be used for cyberattacks. Many problems are avoided much earlier, and success for the company is achieved more quickly.
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