What Is CSPM (Cloud Security Posture Management)?

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Cloud security posture management (CSPM) is like having your own security guard for your cloud environment. It’s constantly on the lookout for misconfiguration issues and compliance risks that might be lurking in your cloud setup. With businesses widely adopting public and multi-cloud services, keeping up with emerging security risks can be a real headache. CSPM tools ease that burden by automatically detecting and addressing misconfigurations across cloud assets, such as Amazon EC2 instances. This proactive approach lets you spot and fix security gaps before they can be exploited, giving you a crucial edge in maintaining a secure cloud environment.


A CSPM also plays a critical role within a Cloud-Native Application Protection Platform (CNAPP). By boosting the speed and efficiency of your cloud security processes and identifying risks in cloud workloads, CSPM is an indispensable part of your cloud security strategy.

What is CSPM

What you’ll learn

  • What a CSPM is and the challenges they solve

  • Key capabilities of a CSPM and why continuous scanning is important

  • How to choose the ideal CSPM solution for your organization

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.

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.

CSPM stands for Cloud Security Posture Management. 

CSPM is for organizations of all sizes that use cloud services and are looking to improve their security posture. It helps you achieve this by continuously monitoring and managing your cloud environments.

A well-rounded CSPM will streamline your cloud security management and provide essential benefits, such as improved security posture, reduced risk of data breaches, and improved compliance with regulatory requirements.

Here are some typical use cases where CSPM excels:

  • Cloud security
    A CSPM excels in identifying and remediating misconfigurations, monitoring compliance, and detecting unauthorized access in your cloud environments.
  • Kubernetes security posture
    With CSPM, you can ensure security best practices are followed in Kubernetes clusters by detecting and remediating vulnerabilities, as well as monitoring pod and container security.
  • Cloud identity and entitlement management
    A CSPM helps you manage access controls, permissions, and entitlements across your cloud services and resources, which is instrumental for preventing unauthorized access and data breaches.
  • Inventory and asset tracking
    With a CSPM, you can maintain an up-to-date inventory of cloud assets and resources, track changes, and identify potential security gaps and vulnerabilities.
  • Vulnerability management
    With new vulnerabilities emerging all the time, a CSPM helps you stay on top of these security risks. It scans cloud environments for vulnerabilities, prioritizes remediation efforts based on risk, and ensures patches are applied promptly to mitigate security risks.
  • Compliance
  • Staying compliant with regulatory requirements is crucial in today’s complex digital landscape. A CSPM helps ensure cloud configurations align with regulatory requirements, monitors compliance in real time, and generates audit reports to demonstrate adherence to security standards.

CSPMs differ from other cloud security solutions by concentrating on monitoring and managing security posture and configurations within cloud environments, rather than broader security aspects like network security or identity management.

A CSPM uncovers a wide array of security misconfigurations lurking within your cloud environment, ranging from excessive access permissions and insecure storage settings to misconfigured network policies and vulnerabilities in cloud applications.

CSPMs continuously evaluate your cloud configurations against industry standards and regulatory requirements. It’s like having a reliable guide identifying any non-compliant settings and guiding you through the remediation process.

Yes, indeed! CSPM solutions seamlessly integrate with other cloud security tools such as cloud access security brokers (CASBs), identity and access management (IAM) solutions, and encryption. Your integrated cloud security tools work together, providing comprehensive coverage that ensures all aspects of your cloud security are thoroughly protected.

While a Cloud Workload Protection Platform (CWPP) focuses on protecting individual workloads and applications within your cloud environments, a CSPM monitors and manages overall security posture to keep your entire cloud environment safe.

The short answer is that CSPM is a capability within CNAPP solutions. CSPM uses automation to help businesses establish a secure posture against threats that could affect cloud environments, as well as ensuring compliance with industry and regulatory standards. A CSPM can exist as a standalone solution, but is also one of the solutions encompassed within a CNAPP. By enhancing cloud security with speed, efficiency, and adaptability to different types of cloud workloads, CSPMs serve as a fundamental component of any comprehensive cloud security strategy.

Managing CSPM through a CNAPP offers a unified approach to managing all aspects of your cloud security. With seamless integration with cloud-native applications, extensive security coverage across cloud environments, and centralized management of security policies and configurations, this approach secures your cloud environment smoothly and effectively.