Cyber Strategy
Cyber Secure
Cyber Operations
Cyber Response
Cyber ResilienceWith cloud computing’s scalability, flexibility, and cost optimization, several organizations are increasingly adopting the technology to host their applications and provide services to their users. This level of adaptability, however, is not without its drawbacks. Cloud computing demands a careful balance between the need to protect online resources from risks like unauthorized access and data leakage and the desire to share those resources with many different user populations. For businesses with tens or hundreds of employees and thousands of customers to serve, using the cloud means creating and managing a plethora of identities—which are often vulnerable to security breaches.
To harness the benefits of cloud computing while giving utmost priority to the security of exposed resources, organizations must incorporate an efficient cloud identity and entitlement management practice into their existing cybersecurity practices.
With cloud computing’s scalability, flexibility, and cost optimization, several organizations are increasingly adopting the technology to host their applications and provide services to their users. This level of adaptability, however, is not without its drawbacks. Cloud computing demands a careful balance between the need to protect online resources from risks like unauthorized access and data leakage and the desire to share those resources with many different user populations. For businesses with tens or hundreds of employees and thousands of customers to serve, using the cloud means creating and managing a plethora of identities—which are often vulnerable to security breaches.
To harness the benefits of cloud computing while giving utmost priority to the security of exposed resources, organizations must incorporate an efficient cloud identity and entitlement management practice into their existing cybersecurity practices.
What is a Cloud Identity?
A cloud identity is any entity, whether machine or human, with access to cloud services or cloud resources. Cloud identities are of two types:
- Human identity: This refers to any person in an organization, regardless of their position, accessing the cloud. Examples include administrators, developers, systems engineers, and other users.
- Non-human identity: Non-human or machine identity refers to any non-human entity that programmatically accesses the cloud on behalf of a human. Examples include connected devices, infrastructure-as-code tools, and artificial intelligence.
Both of these types of identities are common in every cloud-based organization.
What is a Cloud Entitlement?
Cloud entitlements define the actions an identity is permitted to execute in a cloud environment. It defines which resources an identity can access across an organization’s cloud infrastructure and how much access the identity has to those resources.
Entitlements can include access to the following:
- Cloud resources such as, Virtual Machines (VMs), servers, serverless containers.
- Cloud services such as, databases, storage buckets, and networking services.
- Cloud administrative accounts, including ordering and billing portals, security admin consoles, and cloud management consoles.
What is a Cloud Identity?
A cloud identity is any entity, whether machine or human, with access to cloud services or cloud resources. Cloud identities are of two types:
- Human identity: This refers to any person in an organization, regardless of their position, accessing the cloud. Examples include administrators, developers, systems engineers, and other users.
- Non-human identity: Non-human or machine identity refers to any non-human entity that programmatically accesses the cloud on behalf of a human. Examples include connected devices, infrastructure-as-code tools, and artificial intelligence.
Both of these types of identities are common in every cloud-based organization.
What is a Cloud Entitlement?
Cloud entitlements define the actions an identity is permitted to execute in a cloud environment. It defines which resources an identity can access across an organization’s cloud infrastructure and how much access the identity has to those resources.
Entitlements can include access to the following:
- Cloud resources such as, Virtual Machines (VMs), servers, serverless containers.
- Cloud services such as, databases, storage buckets, and networking services.
- Cloud administrative accounts, including ordering and billing portals, security admin consoles, and cloud management consoles.
What is a CIEM?
The process of managing identities and privileges in cloud environments is known as cloud infrastructure entitlement management (CIEM). As organizations continue to create multiple identities and entitlements across multiple cloud providers, they will soon outgrow a humanly manageable size. To manage this expanding number of cloud entities and guarantee their security from malicious actors, there is a need for a proper management process.
Understanding which access entitlements are present across cloud and multicloud environments is the first step in identifying and mitigating the risks brought on by access entitlements that grant more access than is needed.
CIEM solutions provide security for cloud entities through the principle of least privilege. To find irregularities in account permissions in multi-cloud environments, CIEM solutions employ machine learning and analytics. Through consistent identity access management (IAM) across all of their cloud services, organizations are able to apply the visibility provided by CIEM solutions to reduce cyber threats like data breaches and data exfiltration.
What is a CIEM?
The process of managing identities and privileges in cloud environments is known as cloud infrastructure entitlement management (CIEM). As organizations continue to create multiple identities and entitlements across multiple cloud providers, they will soon outgrow a humanly manageable size. To manage this expanding number of cloud entities and guarantee their security from malicious actors, there is a need for a proper management process.
Understanding which access entitlements are present across cloud and multicloud environments is the first step in identifying and mitigating the risks brought on by access entitlements that grant more access than is needed.
CIEM solutions provide security for cloud entities through the principle of least privilege. To find irregularities in account permissions in multi-cloud environments, CIEM solutions employ machine learning and analytics. Through consistent identity access management (IAM) across all of their cloud services, organizations are able to apply the visibility provided by CIEM solutions to reduce cyber threats like data breaches and data exfiltration.
Why do you need to manage cloud identities and entitlements?
According to Malwarebytes’ June 2022 report, the second most common cause of cloud security breaches is weak cloud identity and privilege management policies. This by itself demonstrates the importance of correctly managing cloud identities and entitlements. Other reasons to use CIEM include:
- Excessive privileges: It increases risk and exposure when organizations distribute privileges carelessly or indiscriminately. Excessive cloud entitlements and overly-permitted entities can widen the attack surface, facilitating adversaries’ lateral movement and mayhem in an environment.
- Inconsistency in identity management standards across clouds: Each cloud provider approaches IAM security differently, with different roles, authorization structures, tools, and terminology. Businesses that use multiple cloud providers must use multiple provider-specific tools, which can lead to inconsistencies in configuration, security gaps, and vulnerabilities. Managing IDs and entitlements could become a time-consuming, resource-intensive, and error-prone process.
- Dynamic nature of the cloud: The cloud is flexible and dynamic. Applications and services are launched on demand, and containers are continuously spun up and cycled down. As a result, issuing entitlements and managing access credentials becomes even more difficult.
By increasing visibility, identifying, and correcting IAM misconfigurations to establish least-privilege access across single and multi-cloud environments, CIEM solutions address these challenges.
Why do you need to manage cloud identities and entitlements?
According to Malwarebytes’ June 2022 report, the second most common cause of cloud security breaches is weak cloud identity and privilege management policies. This by itself demonstrates the importance of correctly managing cloud identities and entitlements. Other reasons to use CIEM include:
- Excessive privileges: It increases risk and exposure when organizations distribute privileges carelessly or indiscriminately. Excessive cloud entitlements and overly-permitted entities can widen the attack surface, facilitating adversaries’ lateral movement and mayhem in an environment.
- Inconsistency in identity management standards across clouds: Each cloud provider approaches IAM security differently, with different roles, authorization structures, tools, and terminology. Businesses that use multiple cloud providers must use multiple provider-specific tools, which can lead to inconsistencies in configuration, security gaps, and vulnerabilities. Managing IDs and entitlements could become a time-consuming, resource-intensive, and error-prone process.
- Dynamic nature of the cloud: The cloud is flexible and dynamic. Applications and services are launched on demand, and containers are continuously spun up and cycled down. As a result, issuing entitlements and managing access credentials becomes even more difficult.
By increasing visibility, identifying, and correcting IAM misconfigurations to establish least-privilege access across single and multi-cloud environments, CIEM solutions address these challenges.
Benefits of CIEM
- Improved multicloud visibility: CIEM provides a comprehensive view of identities, net effective cloud permissions, policies, and access risks across multicloud environments.
- Automatic detection and remediation: CIEM determines the baseline activity and is able to identify events like account compromises, insider threats, lost access tokens, and other potentially harmful user activities.
- Improve audit readiness: Monitoring and securing entitlements across your cloud platforms helps you adhere to compliance regulations and standards related to user permissions.
- Improved productivity: Cloud users in an organization will complete tasks more quickly and accurately if they are only given access to an application for a brief period of time.
- Increased system stability: CIEM enforces privilege management and helps you avoid human error. Users who have restricted access to resources are prevented from making mistakes such as accidentally deleting files or mis-reconfiguration. Additionally, because access is limited, if an application is vulnerable, it won’t affect other applications, thereby leading to reliable system stability.
Benefits of CIEM
- Improved multicloud visibility: CIEM provides a comprehensive view of identities, net effective cloud permissions, policies, and access risks across multicloud environments.
- Automatic detection and remediation: CIEM determines the baseline activity and is able to identify events like account compromises, insider threats, lost access tokens, and other potentially harmful user activities.
- Improve audit readiness: Monitoring and securing entitlements across your cloud platforms helps you adhere to compliance regulations and standards related to user permissions.
- Improved productivity: Cloud users in an organization will complete tasks more quickly and accurately if they are only given access to an application for a brief period of time.
- Increased system stability: CIEM enforces privilege management and helps you avoid human error. Users who have restricted access to resources are prevented from making mistakes such as accidentally deleting files or mis-reconfiguration. Additionally, because access is limited, if an application is vulnerable, it won’t affect other applications, thereby leading to reliable system stability.
Conclusion
The ability to manage identities and access entitlements across cloud environments is crucial for organizations that want to implement a secure multi-cloud strategy and retain data sovereignty. CIEM solutions help organizations mitigate potential threats because they can identify irregularities in account access and perform remediation when necessary. Through the principle of least privilege, these solutions enforce minimum access requirements and ensure only authorized entities have access to cloud resources. CIEM solutions are beneficial for organizations that want to prioritize security without jeopardizing their cloud flexibility and ease of use. They also have the potential to increase the productivity of their employees while reducing risk.
Conclusion
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