What Is CSPM (Cloud Security Posture Management)?

The “posture management” metaphor

Let’s tackle the metaphor behind the term “posture management.” At first glance, it might seem like something your chiropractor would talk about, not your cybersecurity team. But bear with us.

Just like a strong posture in martial arts or wrestling forms the foundation of a solid defensive strategy, a CSPM is all about establishing a robust security stance in your cloud environment. By ensuring your settings are always securely configured, you make it significantly harder for attackers to knock down your digital defenses.

Before we go deeper into all things CSPM, let’s take a step back to quickly review how CSPMs have evolved over time.

The road to CSPM

CSPMs have come a long way since they were first introduced. As the cloud landscape has expanded, CSPMs have also had to evolve their functions beyond just monitoring cloud instances for misconfigurations and improper settings. Today’s CSPMs not only detect cloud misconfigurations but also manage applications, control identity access, identify vulnerabilities, and automatically remediate cloud misconfigurations.

This evolution is significant because it’s part of a shift towards proactive rather than reactive security measures. By actively managing access controls, applications, and vulnerabilities, CSPMs help organizations prevent security breaches before they occur.

The rise of continuous posture assessments

One key CSPM innovation deserves extra focus. In earlier versions, CSPMs relied on periodic posture assessments, which reviewed static risks (like the configuration of high-privilege users, or S3 buckets with Internet exposure) on a fixed schedule. This approach misses real-time activities and changes, while also often generating too many alerts to effectively  prioritize.

In today’s hyper-speed cloud environment, attackers aren’t just knocking on the door — they’re breaking in before we can even finish our morning coffee. With cloud workloads hurtling into production at breakneck speed, the “old school” approach of point-in-time assessments simply doesn’t cut it anymore.

As more cloud workloads moved to production, and attackers exploited the speed of cloud automation to launch attacks within minutes, modern CSPM solutions shifted from periodic point-in-time assessments to continuous posture assessments. This change was critical for security teams to identify, prioritize, and mitigate active cloud risks, and to prevent attacks from spreading.

Rather than relying on static snapshots, modern CSPM solutions dynamically detect active cloud risks by maintaining a vigilant watch 24/7. They swiftly identify and prioritize risks in real time, preempting potential havoc. Think of it as having a round-the-clock security detail that swiftly contains and neutralizes threats.

What problems does a CSPM solve?

The developments in CSPM software over time have been game-changers in tackling critical challenges for security practitioners. So now, let’s dive into those specific challenges that CSPM solutions are tailor-made to solve:

• Slow, manual processes
  CSPMs automate security workflows, sparing teams from manual evaluations and remediation tasks. By continuously parsing through cloud configurations, CSPMs promptly detect risks with minimal human effort.
• Visibility gaps across cloud environments
  As organizations expanded their cloud usage, siloed solutions made it increasingly difficult to gain a view of the entire landscape. CSPMs address this challenge by providing a comprehensive inventory and risk assessment for all cloud assets, including IaaS, PaaS, hosts, containers, vulnerabilities, and identities.
• Alert fatigue
  Legacy CSPMs inundated security practitioners with numerous alerts, and lacked the ability to effectively prioritize the most critical issues. This overwhelmed security teams with alerts and unnecessary distractions. In contrast, a modern CSPM prioritizes top risks that are actively exploitable, such as in-use software packages with critical vulnerabilities. This makes it easy to identify and prioritize active cloud risks. 
• Infrequent risk snapshots
  Modern CSPMs have moved away from periodic scans to continuous assessments, providing real-time visibility into posture drift, configuration changes, and live events. This empowers teams to swiftly detect new risks or impending attacks in mere seconds.

5 Essential Capabilities for a Modern CSPM Solution

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Benefits

Now that we’ve navigated through the challenges that CSPMs address, let’s uncover the benefits they bring to the table. With a CSPM by your side, you’re not only securing your cloud environment but also empowering your team, optimizing resources, and paving the way for smoother operations.

• Enhanced security
  CSPMs boost your defense against cyber threats by automating security workflows, quickly spotting risks, and prioritizing active threats for fast resolution. 
• Improved compliance
  With continuous assessments and real-time monitoring, you’ll always stay one step ahead of audits and compliance checks. CSPMs make sure your cloud configurations meet industry standards and regulatory requirements.
• Reduced expenses 
  CSPMs help optimize cloud resources by identifying and eliminating unused resources, right-sizing instances, and minimizing the risk of costly security breaches. It’s a win-win for your security and your budget.
• Streamlined operations
  By automating security workflows, giving you clear visibility, and enabling you to proactively manage cloud risk, CSPMs streamline your security operations and boost your team’s efficiency.
• Improved flexibility
  As your cloud environment evolves, so too does your CSPM. Whether you’re scaling up or down, CSPMs adapt to your needs, offering flexibility and scalability to accommodate your changing workloads and requirements. 

How a CSPM works

At this point, you’re probably wondering, “How does this magic happen?” Let’s break it down into the fundamental four-step CSPM process:

1. Define CSPM requirements
   Getting started involves outlining the security risks your team wants to address. While most CSPM platforms offer a healthy starter set of preconfigured rules for spotting common security slip-ups, you can also create custom definitions that are tailored to your specific needs or compliance requirements.
2. Continuously scan cloud environments
   CSPM tools act like diligent detectives, constantly combing through your cloud environment for any signs of trouble. They tirelessly scan and analyze configurations, searching for potential security risks and vulnerabilities. If a new configuration appears or an existing one changes in a way that could pose a security risk, your CSPM will promptly detect it.
3. Assess risk severity
   So, the CSPM has identified a potential threat — what’s next? The tool evaluates how severe the risk is and assigns it a priority level. Since CSPMs vary in their approaches to prioritization, it’s crucial to use a modern CSPM that prioritizes based on active risk. This involves using runtime insights to understand security risks that are correlated with applications, services, and other resources that are currently running in your cloud environment. By prioritizing risks based on what’s actively in use, you can effectively manage your cloud security and avoid alert overload. 
4. Remediate risks
   The CSPM’s final and most important task is to facilitate resolution of those high-risk issues. Using insights from CSPM tools, you can pinpoint the root cause of an issue and make the appropriate configuration adjustments. While some risks may need manual intervention, a good CSPM tool can automatically fix certain issues. For example, if a user has excessive permissions, the CSPM should be able to enforce recommended identity and access management policies.

And there you have it: the blueprint of a CSPM. Let’s now dig into the key capabilities that make it all possible.

The key capabilities of CSPMs

• Out-of-the-box policies
  Offers numerous pre-developed policies from common cybersecurity frameworks, such as GDPR, SOC2, HIPAA, and NIST, making it fast and easy to implement robust security.
• Agentless scanning
  Swiftly scans cloud assets, configurations, permissions, vulnerabilities, and more without installing agents.
• Agentless detection
  Detects near real-time events and configuration changes using cloud logs.
• Agent-based detection
  Prevents mistakes from cascading and thwarts attacks from spreading with the help of agent-based detection.
• Runtime enrichment
  Identifies in-use assets and packages to prioritize risks and minimize noise, ensuring you can focus on what truly matters.
• Multi-domain correlation
  Uncovers the riskiest combinations across various assets and users, providing a comprehensive view of potential threats.
• Inventory search
  Identifies and filters assets across multiple clouds and platforms in just a few clicks, streamlining asset discovery.
• Attack path analysis
  Visualizes interconnected risks and exploitable links across resources, enabling proactive risk mitigation.
• Vulnerability prioritization
  Prioritizes in-use packages with critical and exploitable vulnerabilities, ensuring you can address the most pressing threats.
• Remediation at source
  Automates infrastructure as code (IaC) template changes for seamless remediation, reducing manual intervention.

Choosing a CSPM

In addition to the four-step blueprint and key capabilities list provided earlier, it’s essential that your CSPM is equipped to help you 1) identify active risks, and 2) prioritize them based on their urgency. 

To support this, look for the following features in your CSPM:

• Real-time detection of active risk
  Active risk includes real-time activities and dynamic changes in your environment, such as a user actively logging in without multi-factor authentication (MFA). By selecting a solution that provides continuous posture assessments rather than periodic snapshots, you’ll equip yourself with a robust CSPM that quickly identifies security issues.
• Prioritization based on runtime insights
  Alerts prioritized with runtime insights — that is, with an understanding of what’s actively running in your production environment — is crucial. This ensures that your issues are prioritized based on what’s most relevant. With access to real-time information, you can effectively manage your cloud security posture by directing your focus where it’s most needed.

Questions to ask your vendor

As you begin the process to select a CSPM vendor, it’s essential to get a clear understanding of each vendor’s offerings. Here are some key questions to ask vendors that will help guide your discussion, and ensure you find the right fit for your needs:

• Does your CSPM provide continuous posture assessments to see active risks, or does it still use periodic, point-in-time assessments?
• Can your solution detect and prioritize active risks in real time based on what’s actively running and in use?
• Does your CSPM support both an agentless and agent-based approach?
• How does your CSPM solution ensure compliance with industry standards and regulations?
• What mechanisms does your solution have in place for threat detection and incident response?
• How does your solution handle scalability and adaptability to different cloud environments and workloads?
• Can you provide a demo, and do you offer a trial of your CSPM solution?
• Can you provide customer references and testimonials for your CSPM?
• What is the vendor onboarding process like, and what level of support do you provide to customers?

Keeping up with the latest compliance regulations

In the fast-changing world of cybersecurity compliance, staying ahead of the curve is crucial. With new SEC disclosure requirements to regulations like Network and Information Security Directive (NIS2 Directive) and Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA), prompt disclosure of security events is now essential.

To navigate this complex landscape and stay compliant, it’s crucial to understand your cloud assets and associated risks. This is where a CSPM provides significant value in helping you ensure your cloud assets comply with regulations.

CSPMs go beyond simple scanning, meticulously cataloging your hosts, cloud services, Kubernetes clusters, and containers. This organized inventory simplifies the complexity of your cloud assets, making it easier to quickly identify vulnerabilities and prioritize based on risk indicators across your multi-cloud services.

Of course, compliance is more than just ticking boxes. It involves continuously assessing and auditing your cloud estate to meet regulatory standards. With its prepackaged security and compliance policies, a CSPM makes it easy for you to seamlessly assess and maintain compliance across your entire cloud ecosystem.

Runtime insights for better prioritization

Perhaps one of the most critical features for any modern CSPM is runtime insights.

Simply put, having current knowledge of what’s actively running gives you the context needed to address the most critical risks head-on. With CSPM solutions using runtime insights, you can effectively prioritize and address the most significant cloud risks. By combining real-time posture-drift detections and in-use permissions with static checks that flag misconfigurations and known vulnerabilities, you’re equipped to proactively safeguard your cloud infrastructure.

FAQs

As we wrap up our CSPM deep dive, here are some answers to frequently asked questions that you can use as a reference.