Our enterprises used to be dependent on on-premise data centers, where things were largely static in terms of resources. In order to identify and fix vulnerable gaps in your servers and endpoints, vulnerability management was given top emphasis.
While it’s still vital to check for vulnerabilities, the way that firms function now is very different. Our technology is moving from on-premises to the cloud, so our strategies for protecting it must change along with it. Traditional security ideas must adjust to match modern environments and requirements because they do not always apply to the cloud.
Your firm will rapidly discover that it is expensive and inefficient to secure the tools and procedures created to function on-premises. This could also result in blind spots. Some on-premises tools are not intended to be implemented in the fleeting environment of the cloud.
CWPP: What Is It?
The Cloud Workload Protection Platform (CWPP), according to Gartner, is a “workload-centric security solution that targets the unique protection requirements” of the workloads running in the cloud. In other words, it’s cloud-based vulnerability scanning. No matter how briefly they are spun up, each workload that provides a service; whether it is an AWS EC2, an Azure VM, or Google containers, presents a target for attack.
As the use of cloud native applications grows across all cloud resources, different workload security requirements also variate. The number of entities to protect has multiplied as a result of the switch to microservices. Today, environments are also changing swiftly. DevOps teams routinely deploy on a daily or weekly basis, which means your cloud environment is constantly changing, making visibility for security teams challenging.
All of this necessitates the use of CWPP solutions.
CWPP: Why Is It Important?
The application itself, any data produced by or entering the workload, and any interactions between the application and the identity utilizing it must all be protected. Today, organizations work in a variety of on-premises workstations; public clouds, and private clouds, making workload security a very complex undertaking.
The variety of resources and tools can be overwhelming when there is a complete environment to manage. The context provided by CWPP enables a more thorough understanding of your workload vulnerabilities and enables you to give priority to issues that pose the most risks.
When you take into account additional facets of cloud security like; identity, data, and platform, the significance of workload protection solutions only grows. If a workload is exposed to the internet and has access to your most sensitive data with a severely permitted identity, it can soon turn into a major risk. With this knowledge, your staff is able to give this topic the utmost priority.
Although more recent workload protection can offer this crucial context, traditional CWPP suppliers assess their vulnerabilities based on a raw CVSS score. Having this context also makes it easier to determine where you can de-prioritize and shift your attention elsewhere when teams are already severely overburdened with alerts and dangers. Consider a workload in your cloud that is four layers deep, has at least privilege, and has no access to any data. If this workload degrades, it may become something that we can handle later.
How Does CWPP Function?
A platform for protecting cloud workloads can identify every workload present in your cloud environment and assess it for any potential security flaws. It accomplishes all of this without the need to set up an agent or grant the scanner extremely lax access to the resource.
Finding possible vulnerabilities is only the first step; after that, a mature CWPP will be able to evaluate the risk in its overall context and provide the capability to install security controls to address these problems not only in one cloud but across all of your clouds from a single location. It will also offer protection for your cloud workloads from any known or widespread security concerns; for some workloads, this can involve runtime protection, malware detection, and removal, or network segmentation.
What Advantages Come with CWPP Use and How Does it Bridge the Security Gap?
It is more difficult to identify, manage, mitigate, and prevent potential data breaches, unauthorized cloud access, and other expensive risks without complete visibility into every component of your workload, including the public cloud. By offering a single point of cloud security for internal workloads, CWPPs seek to close this gap.
Centralization of Data
A CWPP will provide a unified view of what’s going on in every workload across all of your cloud environments as well as within a single cloud.
Context
If you find the right workload protection solution, CWPP tools can provide a critical context for your team. One that integrates with other cloud security solutions, such as posture and identity management. This context clarifies if a vulnerability requires immediate attention (such as a VM with access to vital data that is online) or whether it can wait until the next day.
Visibility
Teams are better able to manage vulnerabilities not just in one cloud at a time, but across all clouds, thanks to insight into each unique workload. Taking it a step further, visibility adds context, which means that the real problems come to the forefront. Consequently, your employees can constantly concentrate on the risks that are actually the most significant.
Monitoring of Workload Behavior
This picks up any irregularities that depart from the policies you’ve set in place and can indicate a threat. The relevant teams receive a notification once this completes.
Quicker Solutions
Elevated CWPP solutions will give your team the ability to prioritize vulnerabilities through “risk amplifiers.” They offer sophisticated procedures to quickly route issues to the appropriate team. The addition of automation to this makes sure that your risks are under proper management at the pace and scope of the cloud.
Team Happiness
A happier SecOps team is the result of combining workload concerns into a centralized view. Sending alerts when a vulnerability manifests itself, which is what leads to faster resolutions and security at the speed and scale of the cloud. Employees also experience less stress and are able to concentrate on more important tasks.
Conclusion
Organizations may now develop rapidly and execute tasks that would have previously taken hours. All thanks to the cloud and its services. You need a trustworthy method to scan for vulnerabilities and prioritize risks. Especially the ones you are not aware you have. This is why CWPP is so important for bridging security gaps.
Read More: How CWPP Bridges the Security Gap?
