What is Cloud Detection and Response (CDR)

Detection and response capabilities are available in various corporate IT environments. Endpoint detection and response (EDR) solutions secure endpoints, while network detection and response (NDR) offers protection at the network level. Extended detection and response (XDR) offers greater security integration and uses context to identify more subtle and sophisticated attacks.

However, these tools are generally not designed for cloud environments, which differ significantly from traditional, on-prem environments. For example, cloud customers have limited visibility into their infrastructure stack, and ephemeral cloud resources can be more difficult to track and secure than traditional, static endpoints.

Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) offers companies the capabilities they need to secure their cloud environments. Using artificial intelligence, threat intelligence, and automation, CDR offers deeper visibility and automated remediation in cloud environments.

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The Need for Cloud Detection and Response (CDR)

CDR fulfills a vital role in an organization’s cybersecurity architecture. Some of the main drivers for CDR include:

Cloud Adoption: Cloud adoption has grown rapidly in recent years. As a result, the sprawl of corporate cloud platforms may have outpaced companies’ abilities to secure these environments.
Complex Multi-Cloud Environments: Most companies have cloud resources spread across multiple providers’ environments. Platform-specific configurations and security controls increase security complexity.
Vulnerabilities and Misconfigurations: Cloud environments commonly contain large numbers of vulnerabilities. One main driver of this is security misconfigurations that leave cloud resources exposed to attack.
Fragmented Identity Management: Identity and Access Management (IAM) can be fragmented across multiple cloud and on-prem environments. This makes it more difficult to track identity and impose effective access controls in cloud environments.
Dynamic Cloud Resources: Cloud architectures enable organizations to spin up and take down resources at need. This can result in visibility and security gaps in an organization’s cloud security architecture.

How Does Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) Work?

CDR takes many of the same functions provided by EDR, XDR, and NDR and offers the same capabilities in the cloud. CDR protects cloud resources via a multi-stage process that includes the following steps:

Automated Monitoring: CDR automatically maps and monitors an organization’s cloud environment, enabling it to identify potential security risks.
Threat Detection: Anomaly detection and machine learning algorithms are used to identify and simulate attack chains, providing in-depth visibility into potential threats.
Visualization: A centralized monitoring and management console enables security personnel to visualize cloud environments and threats. Personnel can also make queries and receive notifications and security alerts.
Response: Artificial intelligence enables automated remediation of identified and verified cyberattacks across an organization’s entire cloud infrastructure.

Key Capabilities of Cloud Detection and Response (CDR)

CDR can be a powerful resource for organizations looking to enhance the security of their cloud environments. Some of the key capabilities that a CDR solution should offer include the following:

Continuous Monitoring: CDR solutions provide real-time monitoring of an organization’s entire cloud ecosystem. This enables it to identify misconfigurations, vulnerabilities, and other potential security gaps in an organization’s cloud infrastructure.
Complete Visibility: CDR should offer an organization complete visibility across all cloud environments without silos created by multi-cloud environments.
Attack Chain VisibilitAy: A CDR solution should offer end-to-end visibility into a potential attack chain in the cloud. This enables an organization to more effectively correlate and respond to cloud security threats.
Risk Validation: Based on threat intelligence and identified security issues, CDR should be able to simulate potential cyberattacks. This enables the solution to validate that a potential risk poses a real threat to an organization’s cloud security.
Threat Detection and Response: CDR solutions should use threat intelligence, deep visibility, and machine learning to identify attempted attacks against an organization’s cloud resources. It should then block the attack or automatically take steps to remediate it.
Security Integration: CDR is one piece of a corporate cybersecurity architecture. Integration with other enterprise security solutions is essential for centralized management and effective response to identified threats.
Flexibility and Adaptability: Cloud environments are often unique and rapidly changing. A CDR solution should be able to automatically inventory an organization’s cloud-based assets and adapt to secure them.

Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) with CloudGuard CNAPP

As companies move more applications and data to the cloud, they require more advanced security solutions to protect these resources against attack. However, many organizations struggle to secure their clouds, which differ significantly from traditional, on-prem environments. As a result, the cloud is a common target for cyberattacks, as detailed in Check Point’s 2023 Cyber Security Report. CDR can help to close the cloud security gap by leveraging machine learning and automation to more effectively identify, prevent, and remediate cloud incursions across multi-cloud environments.

Check Point’s CloudGuard Cloud-Native Application Protection Platform (CNAPP) offers enterprise-grade security for cloud environments, including CDR capabilities with CloudGuard for Cloud Intelligence and Threat Hunting. To learn more about how CloudGuard CNAPP can enhance your organization’s cloud security, sign up for a free demo today.