Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM): A Complete Guide

According to recent research by Flextera, companies are turning to the cloud to run their workloads at an accelerated pace. Their 2024 State of the Cloud report found that 58% of companies plan to migrate more workloads to the cloud in 2024, up from 44% in 2023.

The survey also found that 71% are actively optimizing their use of current cloud resources, an increase of almost ten percent from 2023. Our 2024 State of Software Quality report also found that 50% of the development teams we surveyed are considering adopting cloud-based development environments (CDEs), and 14% already use them. 

With the cloud here to stay, it's imperative to proactively manage your cloud security posture to safeguard your assets, prevent breaches, and ensure compliance. 

What is Cloud Security Posture Management?

Cloud security posture management (CSPM) is a category of security tools and practices designed to enhance and maintain the security of cloud environments. CSPM solutions help companies find and resolve security risks by continuously monitoring, assessing, and improving their cloud infrastructure's security posture. 

But what are these cloud components that CSPM protects? Cloud environments consist of a variety of components and systems utilized to provide scalable, flexible, and on-demand computing resources, including: 

• Compute Resources
  • Virtual Machines (VMs) that provide computing power similar to traditional physical servers.
    
    
  • Containers that package applications and their dependencies, enabling consistent deployment across different environments.
    
    
  • Serverless functions that allow code execution without managing the underlying infrastructure.

• Storage Systems
  • Object storage services like Amazon S3, Google Cloud Storage, and Azure Blob Storage.
    
    
  • Block storage that provides low-latency storage for applications and databases.
    
    
  • File storage solutions, like Amazon EFS, that provide shared file systems accessible by multiple instances.

• Database Services
  • Relational databases like Amazon RDS, Google Cloud SQL, and Azure SQL Database that support structured data and SQL queries.
    
    
  • NoSQL databases like Amazon DynamoDB, Google Cloud Firestore, and Azure Cosmos DB that handle unstructured or semi-structured data.
    
    
  • Data warehouses like Amazon Redshift and Google BigQuery that are optimized for large-scale data analysis and reporting.

• Networking Components
  • Virtual Private Clouds (VPCs) that allow users to define their IP address range, subnets, and routing.
    
    
  • Firewalls and security groups used to define and enforce network access rules to control inbound and outbound traffic.

• Identity and Access Management (IAM)
  • User and role management systems for managing users, roles, and their permissions to access different resources and services within the cloud environment.
    
    
  • Multi-factor authentication (MFA) systems.

• DevOps and CI/CD Pipelines
  • Tools and services that automate application build, test, and deployment processes (e.g., Jenkins, GitLab CI/CD, Azure DevOps).
    
    
  • Tools for managing and maintaining the desired state of cloud resources (e.g., Ansible, Puppet, Chef).

• Backup and Disaster Recovery
  • Backup services for creating and managing backups of data and applications (e.g., AWS Backup, Google Cloud Backup and DR).
    
    
  • Disaster recovery tools and services for ensuring business continuity and data recovery in case of failures (e.g., Azure Site Recovery).

To protect these cloud systems, CSPM tools provide the following: 

• Continuous monitoring of cloud environments to detect any potential security risks, vulnerabilities, or misconfigurations to ensure that security issues are identified in real time.
  
  
• Compliance management tools that help ensure that cloud environments comply with standards and regulations, like GDPR, HIPAA, or ISO/IEC 27001, by providing automated checks and reporting.
  
  
• Automated remediation options, detailed guidance on how to fix security issues, or the automated enforcement of security policies, when security issues are identified.
  
  
• Risk visualization via dashboards and other visual tools that provide an overview of the current security posture to help security teams understand their risk exposure and prioritize actions to mitigate risks.
  
  
• Configuration management that continuously assesses cloud configurations against best practices and security benchmarks to prevent misconfigurations that could lead to vulnerabilities.
  
  
• Threat detection through analyzing cloud activity and detecting anomalies that might indicate malicious behavior or breaches.

What Do CSPM Tools Do?

Cloud security posture management tools continuously scan for misconfigurations, such as publicly exposed storage buckets, insecure network settings, and improperly configured access controls, and provide remediation guidance. They monitor for excessive permissions to limit potential damage from compromised accounts.

These tools can also detect unusual activities that might indicate data exfiltration attempts and help prevent sensitive data from being transferred out of the cloud environment without authorization. They also assess API configurations and usage patterns to identify and mitigate potential security vulnerabilities.

CSPM tools provide visibility into user activities and detect anomalies that might indicate malicious actions by insiders. They monitor for unusual access patterns or attempts to modify critical configurations. They also check for the proper implementation of encryption policies and alert administrators to any deviations.

They can identify unpatched software and services within the cloud environment, ensure that logging and monitoring are correctly configured, and ensure that logs are adequately stored and protected.

Why Is CSPM Important? 

CSPM helps identify and mitigate vulnerabilities and misconfigurations in cloud environments. By continuously monitoring for security risks and providing automated remediation, CSPM tools help prevent, which can have devastating consequences for businesses.

Many companies are subject to strict industry or regional regulations. CSPM ensures that cloud environments adhere to these regulations by continuously assessing compliance and generating reports. This helps them avoid fines and costly legal penalties associated with non-compliance.

Manually monitoring and managing cloud security can be time-consuming and prone to human error. CSPM automates these processes, reducing the burden on IT and security teams and allowing businesses to focus on product development activities rather than routine security tasks.

CSPM platforms also provide visibility through dashboards and risk visualization tools, helping businesses understand their risk exposure,  and make better, well-informed decisions to enhance security.

What Are the Key Benefits of CSPM? 

By preventing security incidents and ensuring compliance, CSPM can help businesses avoid the financial losses associated with data breaches, regulatory fines, and operational disruptions. Additionally, automated remediation reduces the need for extensive manual intervention, further lowering operational costs.

Maintaining a robust security posture helps build trust with customers, partners, and stakeholders. A recent KPMG report found that 55% of consumers cited data protection as their primary expectation of companies. Businesses committed to security are more likely to attract and retain customers who value data protection and privacy.

CSPM tools provide proactive threat detection, allowing businesses to respond to security incidents before they escalate. The best CSPM solutions are also designed to scale with the company, providing consistent security management across expanding cloud infrastructures.

How Does Cloud Security Posture Management Work?

To understand how cloud infrastructure security posture management works, let’s examine every phase of the process to understand what these tools do and how they operate within a well-rounded CSPM solution. 

Continuous Monitoring

CSPM tools integrate with cloud service providers (CSPs) like AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud to collect data about the configuration and activity of cloud resources. This includes settings, access controls, network configurations, and more.

The collected data is continuously analyzed to identify potential security risks and misconfigurations. CSPM solutions use predefined policies and rulesets to evaluate the security posture of cloud services in real time.

Automated Risk Assessments

CSPM tools automatically assess the cloud environment against industry standards and regulatory requirements (e.g., GDPR, HIPAA, PCI-DSS). They generate compliance reports and highlight areas that need attention. These tools also compare the current security posture against best practices and security benchmarks (e.g., CIS Benchmarks) to ensure optimal configuration and security.

Risk Identification

CSPM identifies vulnerabilities such as open ports, outdated software, and insecure configurations that attackers could exploit. By analyzing patterns and behaviors, CSPM tools can detect issues that can point to security threats or unauthorized activities.

Security Policy Enforcement

CSPM enforces security policies across the cloud environment. This includes ensuring proper access controls, network security configurations, encryption standards, and more. When a security issue is detected, CSPM tools can automatically remediate the problem or provide detailed steps for manual resolution. For example, if a storage bucket is found to be publicly accessible, the tool might automatically change the settings to restrict access.

Security Risk Visualization

The best cloud security posture management platforms provide visual dashboards that display the security posture of the cloud environment. These dashboards highlight critical issues, compliance status, and overall security metrics. Administrators receive alerts and notifications for critical security issues, allowing them to respond promptly to potential threats.

Common CSPM Challenges

Implementing a cloud security posture management program comes with both predictable and unforeseen challenges. Some of the most common challenges businesses face when implementing a CSPM program include:

• Cloud complexity: Managing security across multiple cloud providers (e.g., AWS, Azure, Google Cloud) adds complexity due to differing security controls and configurations. Cloud environments are highly dynamic, with frequent changes in resources and configurations, making continuous monitoring and management challenging.
  
  
• Misconfigurations: Rapid deployment cycles and frequent updates increase the risk of misconfigurations, which are a primary cause of security vulnerabilities. Manual configurations can lead to errors, especially in complex environments, underscoring the need for automated checks and balances.
  
  
• Evolving compliance and regulatory requirements: Keeping up with ever-changing regulatory requirements and industry standards can be difficult, requiring constant updates to compliance checks. Different regions may have specific regulations, complicating regulatory compliance management for global organizations.
  
  
• Integration with existing tools: Incompatibility between CSPM tools and existing security and IT management tools can be challenging, requiring customization and potential changes to workflows. Ensuring seamless data sharing and analysis between CSPM tools and other systems is crucial for comprehensive security management.

Understanding your cloud environment before implementation is vital to avoid these potential problems. Begin by identifying and cataloging all cloud resources and services in use, including virtual machines, storage buckets, databases, and any other cloud assets.

Understand the interdependencies between different cloud resources and services to get a complete picture of your cloud environment.

The better you define your security and regulatory compliance requirements, the more straightforward CSPM implementation will be. Identify relevant regulatory requirements and industry standards (e.g., GDPR, HIPAA, PCI-DSS) that your organization must comply with. Establish internal security policies and benchmarks that align with your organization’s risk appetite and business objectives.

Assess your current cloud security posture thoroughly to identify existing vulnerabilities and compliance gaps and prioritize risks according to their potential impact.

Finally, train your IT and security teams on how to use the CSPM tool effectively, including interpreting reports, responding to alerts, and performing remediation actions.

Fortify Software Security with Codacy 

While cloud security posture management is a vital process in managing application security, it certainly isn’t the only security solution modern teams use to get their product and their customers safe. 

There’s also static application security testing (SAST), which scans your source code, identifying and flagging vulnerabilities such as XSS, SQL injection, Broken Access Control, and other critical issues outlined in the OWASP Top 10 list.

Dynamic application security testing (DAST) tests your web app’s front end to find vulnerabilities through simulated attacks. Supply Chain Security (SCA) tools are used to continuously monitor your code for known vulnerabilities, CVEs, and other risks in open-source libraries. 

Penetration testing identifies vulnerabilities in a system through third-party "ethical hackers" before malicious actors can exploit them.

What do all these security features have in common? They are all available through Codacy Security. 

Codacy supports over 40 programming languages and frameworks and offers a unified platform and complete suite of app security tools for development teams of any size. 

Begin your free trial today and strengthen your application security with Codacy.