Why visibility alone isn't enough in cloud security

When it comes to cloud security, many organizations rely on tools that can provide visibility into vulnerabilities and misconfigurations in cloud environments, and that’s it. If a tool can only tell you what the problem is — but not stop adversaries from exploiting it — is it really an effective security solution?

The answer is no. So how did we get here and what’s the solution? Let’s dig in.

An “Alphabet Soup” of Security Tools

As more organizations have moved their operations to the cloud, adversaries have followed. Cloud intrusions have grown steadily over the past decade. In 2023, we saw a 75% increase in cloud intrusions and a 110% increase in the number of cloud-conscious adversaries.

The security response to this rise in cloud-focused attacks has been piecemeal. Cloud security strategies and trends have come in waves, along with a dizzying array of cloud solutions. The space has become cluttered with an alphabet soup of tools: CNAPP, CWP, CSPM, CIEM, CDR, ASPM, DSPM … the list goes on. Many organizations are left wondering how all these solutions fit together.

Often, they don’t. Each of the solutions addresses a different aspect of cloud security. Stitching together a handful of point solutions may work for solving specific problems, but it won’t achieve a comprehensive security posture — or the end goal of stopping breaches.

Point solutions are simply too fragmented to protect today's integrated and ever-changing cloud environments. The rapid pace of continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) development lifecycles, along with the proliferation of multi-cloud configurations, has rendered point solutions incapable of keeping up with the evolving attack surface and threat activity.

Even most CNAPPs, the latest iteration of a comprehensive security posture, were never really designed to stop breaches. They were developed as visibility tools for detecting misconfigurations and vulnerabilities across cloud environments. This is a necessary, but not sufficient condition to truly secure the cloud. To secure the cloud, organizations need the right combination of cybersecurity technology, threat intelligence and professional services delivered as a unified solution, focused on stopping the breach.

Cloud Detection and Response

If stopping breaches is the end goal (which is inarguable, in my opinion), then cloud detection and response should be the focus.

Cloud detection and response (CDR) is a security approach specifically designed for cloud environments that focuses on threat detection, immediate incident response and service integrations. It’s crafted to handle the cloud’s fluidity, leveraging real-time data and cloud-native threat hunting capabilities to protect cloud environments.

The four key components of cloud detection and response are:

1. 24/7 cloud managed detection and response (MDR) and threat hunting to manage the entire incident lifecycle from detection to remediation across every stage of a cloud attack, even as threats move laterally from cloud to endpoint. Most organizations struggle to hire enough cybersecurity experts and provide 24/7 protection. Outsourcing this practice to experts can be money well spent.
2.  Cloud incident response services to prioritize and triage alerts and incidents faster. No technology alone can stop every threat. When the inevitable happens, you need an incident response team that is fast and precise, using threat intelligence to respond with authority.
3.  Threat intelligence to provide insight into attack paths, including lateral movement, across clouds, identities and endpoints. Adversaries use a range of tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) to target cloud environments. Knowing these TTPs enables a faster response — if you don’t understand the adversaries and their behavior, you can’t detect them.
4.  A unified cloud-native application protection platform (CNAPP) that consolidates technologies such as CWP, CSPM, CIEM and ASPM into a single platform. This allows you to detect, respond and prevent cloud intrusions faster, while consolidating point solutions for higher efficiency and lower total cost of ownership.

This Takes Years to Get Right

Cloud detection and response (CDR) comes with its own set of challenges. You can’t expect robust CDR solutions to materialize overnight.

Creating CDR technology that can stop breaches requires the ability to detect and respond to threats accurately and efficiently. This can take years to train against a wide range of adversarial data. It also needs to incorporate endpoint detection and response (EDR) to hunt for threats and stop breaches on the devices people use in their day-to-day work.

Given the importance of detection and response to stop cloud breaches, it’s critical to look for solutions with native detection and response capabilities designed to provide a cohesive experience and stop even the most sophisticated attacks.

The Future of Cloud Security

The future of cloud security demands more than just visibility; it requires decisive action. As organizations continue to expand their cloud footprints, the need for a unified, comprehensive security approach has never been more urgent. Cloud detection and response (CDR) is not just another tool in the cybersecurity toolkit—it is the cornerstone of a proactive defense strategy that anticipates threats, responds in real-time, and scales with the evolving digital landscape.

To truly protect cloud environments, businesses must move beyond fragmented solutions and embrace a cohesive platform that integrates detection, response and expert threat intelligence. This approach not only fortifies cloud defenses but also ensures that when adversaries strike, they are met with swift, decisive action.

In today’s world, where the cloud is central to business operations, the ability to detect, respond to, and neutralize threats in real-time is what separates the truly secure from the dangerously vulnerable. It's not just about knowing there's a threat—it's about having the power to stop it before it causes harm. The future of cloud security hinges on this capability, and it’s a future that every organization must be prepared to face.