What are Cloud Security Companies?

Understanding Security Responsibilities

One of the main benefits of the cloud is that cloud services companies take responsibility for a portion of an organization’s infrastructure. This includes deploying it, maintaining it, and securing it.

It’s important to note that cloud services providers, while responsible for some level of cloud security, are not responsible for all of it. Depending on the cloud service model used (SaaS, PaaS, IaaS, etc.), a cloud customer has control over certain levels of their cloud infrastructure stack. With this control comes the responsibility for securing these levels.

Cloud services providers publish shared responsibility models to delineate the breakdown of security responsibilities. Cloud customers are responsible for reviewing these shared responsibility models and putting solutions in place to fulfill their security responsibilities.

The Role of the Cloud Security Company

Securing the cloud is very different from securing on-premises infrastructure. In the cloud, organizations lack the same level of control of their infrastructure as they enjoy on premises. This means that traditional cybersecurity solutions are often less effective or impossible to use in the cloud.

Exacerbating this issue is the fact that many organizations have multi-cloud deployments. This means that organizations need to learn how to properly configure and secure multiple different vendor-specific platforms. With cloud security expertise already in short supply, effectively securing multiple cloud environments may be outside of an organization’s capabilities.

This is where a cloud security company comes in. A cloud security company offers security tools that are designed for the cloud, and to work across multi-cloud environments. This unifies an organization’s security infrastructure and integrates the required cloud-specific knowledge into the tools themselves.

What Services Do Cloud Security Companies Provide?

A cloud security company should provide an organization with all of the tools that it requires to meet its security responsibilities (according to the shared responsibility model) across all of the cloud service providers that it uses.

These core services should include:

• Cloud Network Protection: Cloud-based applications and data stores communicate with the public Internet and across multiple different cloud deployments. A cloud security company should provide north-south and east-west network visibility and security for public, private, and hybrid cloud deployments.
• Cloud Workload Protection: The use of containers, Kubernetes, and serverless applications in the cloud is growing increasingly popular. A cloud security company should provide granular security visibility and control for these cloud-based workloads and containers.
• Application Security: The variety of cloud deployment models mean that cloud customers can deploy applications in the cloud in a variety of ways. A crucial component of cloud security is protecting these applications using web application firewalls (WAFs) and access control solutions designed to minimize their attack surfaces and vulnerability to exploitation.
• Cloud security posture management (CSPM): Cloud security misconfigurations are a leading cause of data breaches in the cloud. A cloud security provider should offer integrated CSPM to monitor for and remediate cloud security misconfigurations.
• Unified Security and Visibility: Multi-cloud deployments make it difficult for an organization to achieve complete visibility and consistent security enforcement across all of their on-premises and cloud-based infrastructure. A cloud security provider should offer unified security so that an organization can effectively configure, monitor, and secure its heterogeneous infrastructure spread over multiple cloud platforms.
• Compliance and Governance: Regulatory compliance requirements are growing increasingly complex, and organizations are not exempt from them in the cloud. A cloud-based deployment can complicate regulatory compliance, so cloud security providers should offer solutions designed to make it easy to achieve, demonstrate, and maintain compliance with applicable regulations.

Selecting a Cloud Security Company

The cloud is designed to make business easier, and a cloud security provider should do so as well. When evaluating cloud security companies, look for the following:

• Full Provider Support: Most companies create a multi-cloud deployment as they select the best solutions for a variety of use cases. A cloud security provider should offer solutions that support all major cloud platforms and service models.
• Security Unification: Cloud security management can be complex due to the variety of different platforms and systems in use. Cloud security companies should unify security management across all cloud platforms into a single solution.
• Deep Cloud Security Expertise: Cloud security is very different from on-premises security and has its own unique threats and challenges. A cloud security provider should have a deep understanding of the cloud threat landscape and how to address the unique security challenges of the cloud.

Check Point offers several cloud-native security solutions designed to provide protection against a wide range of cloud-specific threats. To learn more about the current challenges that organizations face in securing their cloud infrastructure, check out Check Point’s 2020 Cloud Security Report. You’re also welcome to sign up for a free trial to see how Check Point can help protect your organization against the modern cloud threat landscape.