Integrating CSPM in the Development Cycle 

What is cloud security posture management?

Cloud security posture management (CSPM) automates the detection and remediation of threats in cloud infrastructures such as Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Software as a Service (Saas), and Platform as a Service (PaaS). 

CSPM can apply best practises for cloud security across hybrid, multi-cloud, and container systems universally, and can be used for risk visualisation and assessment, incident response, compliance monitoring, and DevOps integration.

Why is CSPM So Important?

A cloud may join and disconnect with hundreds or even thousands of other networks throughout the course of a day. Clouds are powerful because of their dynamic nature, but they are also difficult to protect. The difficulty of safeguarding cloud-based systems gets increasingly significant as a cloud-first attitude becomes the norm.

Infrastructure as Code (IaC) is a concept that combines these new technologies by allowing infrastructure to be controlled and provisioned using machine-readable definition files.

This API-driven approach is critical in cloud-first environments because it allows for quick infrastructure changes while also making it easy to programme in misconfigurations that leave the environment vulnerable.

According to Gartner, misconfigurations account for 95 per cent of all security breaches, costing businesses almost $5 trillion between 2018 and 2019.

There are hundreds of thousands of instances and accounts in settings as complicated and fluid as the typical enterprise cloud, and understanding what or who is running where and doing what is only conceivable through sophisticated automation.

Without it, vulnerabilities caused by misconfigurations can go undiscovered for days, weeks, or even months, or until a breach occurs.

Cloud security posture management tackles these concerns by continuously monitoring cloud risk through prevention, detection, response, and prediction of where risk will occur next.

Benefits of Cloud Security Posture Management

Intentional and unintentional risk are the two categories of risk. Unintentional errors, such as leaving sensitive data in S3 buckets exposed to the public, can cause massive damage.

For example, in November 2020, at least 10 million files containing sensitive data belonging to travellers and travel brokers were exposed due to an incorrectly configured S3 bucket.

That’s just the latest in a string of high-profile leaks that have afflicted some of the world’s most powerful companies and governments in recent years.

Instead of needing to monitor different consoles and normalise data from multiple suppliers, Cloud Security Posture Management strives to prevent those unintentional vulnerabilities by offering consistent visibility across multi-cloud systems.

Misconfigurations are automatically avoided, and time-to-value is shortened. As a result, the productivity of the security operations centre (SOC) improves.

Because CSPMs are always monitoring and assessing the environment to ensure that compliance regulations are being followed. Corrective procedures can be taken automatically if drift is identified.

Of course, with continuous scans of the entire infrastructure, CSPM discovers hidden dangers, and faster detection implies faster treatment.

How is Cloud Security Posture Management integrated into the development cycle?

Discovery and visibility, misconfiguration management and remediation, continuous threat monitoring, and DevSecOps integration are all provided by Cloud Security Posture Management:

• Discovery and Visibility 

Cloud infrastructure assets and security configurations are discovered and visible using CSPM. 

Misconfigurations, metadata, networking, security, and modification activity are all found automatically when the cloud is deployed. 

A single console is used to administer security group settings across accounts, regions, projects, and virtual networks. 

• Misconfiguration Management and Remediation
  

By comparing cloud application configurations to industry and organisational benchmarks, CSPM lowers security risks and speeds up the delivery process, allowing violations to be recognised and remedied in real time.

Storage is constantly monitored to ensure that the appropriate permissions are always in place and that data is never unintentionally made public. In addition, database instances are monitored for high availability, backups, and encryption.

• Continuous Threat Detection

With a targeted threat identification and management strategy, CSPM proactively detects risks across the application development lifecycle.

Using real-time threat detection, the CSPM will continuously monitor the environment for malicious activity, unauthorised activity, and unauthorised access to cloud services.

• DevSecOps Integration
  

CSPM decreases friction and complexity across many cloud providers and accounts by reducing overhead. 

To improve visibility and collect insights and context concerning misconfigurations and policy breaches, the CSPM should be connected with the SIEM.

The CSPM should also interact with existing DevOps toolsets, allowing for quicker remediation and reaction inside the DevOps toolset. 

You must have understood how to integrate cloud security posture management in the development cycle.