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Why Your Company Needs Cloud Security Posture Management

Cloud services are quickly growing in popularity across a range of organizations and industries thanks to the many benefits they offer. Cloud services improve efficiency and can reduce costs. However, the increased focus on cloud services has also yielded an increased appreciation for the importance of cloud security solutions.

For example, security vendors have begun to offer Cloud Security Posture Management, or CSPM. This brief overview will explain what CSPM is, and why you may need it.

Understanding CSPM

At any given company, certain parties are responsible for establishing the cybersecurity “risk posture.” This is essentially the organization’s overall approach to protecting data and guarding against breaches. It’s both a system and a set of policies.

Traditionally, a company’s in-house IT team would be responsible for translating the risk posture into a functioning system. This is changing in the era of cloud services. Now, at least to some degree, it’s not uncommon for the cloud services provider to be involved in this process.

This can deny customers some of the control they would otherwise have. That’s where CSPM comes in. CSPM solutions are designed to help organizations identify where they’ve lost a degree of control over their own cybersecurity risk posture. Once they’ve identified these gaps, ideally, CSPM products help them fill in such gaps.

It’s true that many cloud services providers do strive to ensure their infrastructure is secure. However, in many instances, the customer is responsible for ensuring that the way they use a provider’s services is secure according to their standards.

The following are among the critical ways CSMP solutions can help:

  • Aligning access to cloud services with an organization’s unique cybersecurity policies.
  • Aligning access controls and authentication procedures with company policies.
  • Ensuring that basic compliance standards are met while also enforcing (again, based on specific company policies) data access rules.
  • Tracking in-cloud network configurations to ensure they remain consistent with cybersecurity policies.
  • Alerting relevant parties when deviations from risk policies occur. Depending on the nature of the CSMP, it may be able to remediate such a deviation automatically. If that’s not possible, by alerting the right people, it helps them remediate it sooner rather than later.

These are all essential benefits in the age of the cloud. Even if your organization doesn’t currently make significant use of cloud services, trends indicate there’s a good chance you will in the near future. Make sure you’re prepared accordingly by considering which cloud security solutions you’ll need to prioritize. CSMP may be one of them.

Author bio:

Anna Power is a writer and digital marketing professional. She earned her Bachelors Degree in Marketing and Marketing Management at Hofstra University in New York and has been working freelance in the field for the last 5 years. Anna is especially interested in the intersection of new technology and digital marketing agency, and writes extensively about the topic. Her other hobbies include travel, trying new coffee shops, and playing with her two cats.

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