Software program Highlight: CrowdStrikeCrowdStrike Falcon® Cloud Safety is a unified cloud safety platform that protects infrastructure, functions, information, AI, and SaaS throughout hybrid and multi-cloud environments. It allows organizations to consolidate instruments, scale back complexity, and cease breaches.
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Cloud safety posture administration, or CSPM instruments, are automated safety options designed to repeatedly monitor and assess cloud infrastructures, companies, and functions for misconfigurations and compliance points.
These instruments are extra necessary than ever as extra organizations now leverage the multicloud strategy to cloud adoption, a apply that comes with configuration and safety compliance complexities. In response to a Fortinet-sponsored report performed by cybersecurity consultants, many organizations are actually more and more cautious of AI-based threats, prompting them to have heightened concern about cloud safety.
To deal with this problem, many cloud-first organizations now deploy CSPM instruments to assist them monitor, establish, alert, and remediate compliance dangers and misconfigurations of their cloud environments.
To find out which CSPM device is greatest suited on your group, I’ve compiled an inventory of the highest CSPM options for 2024.
What’s cloud safety posture administration?
CSPM instruments will help customers preserve a safe cloud posture by recommending greatest practices and imposing safety insurance policies throughout all cloud accounts and companies. These insurance policies can embody entry controls, encryption settings, community configurations, and extra. By automating the enforcement course of, CSPM software program minimizes the chance of misconfigurations and helps defend towards threats or exterior assaults.
SEE: Brute Power and Dictionary Assaults: A Information for IT Leaders (TechRepublic Premium)
Finest cloud safety posture administration software program comparability
The desk beneath offers a comparability of key options obtainable in every CSPM choice.
Finest cloud safety posture administration software program
Here’s a rundown of the seven greatest CSPM software program decisions in 2024, highlighting their options, pricing plans, execs, and cons.
Orca Safety: Finest for cloud workloads
Orca presents customers with a CSPM device that scans their workloads and maps the outcomes right into a centralized platform. It may well analyze dangers and establish conditions the place seemingly unrelated points might result in dangerous assault paths. With these insights, Orca prioritizes dangers, minimizing the burden of extreme alerts for customers.
SEE: The whole lot You Have to Know concerning the Malvertising Cybersecurity Menace (TechRepublic Premium)
Orca additionally facilitates steady monitoring for cloud assaults. It contains a visible graph to offer perception into a corporation’s potential assault floor and the attacker’s finish goal inside a cloud surroundings.
Relating to compliance, Orca offers compliance options that allow cloud sources to stick to regulatory frameworks and {industry} benchmarks, together with information privateness necessities. The platform unifies compliance monitoring for cloud infrastructure workloads, containers, identities, information, and extra, all inside a single dashboard.
Why I selected Orca Safety
I’ve Orca Safety on this record as a result of it’s a high quality answer for organizations that primarily work on the cloud. Its danger evaluation and identification of cloud workloads make it a great tool to fight unnoticed threats. In my opinion, its in depth reporting and insights performance, masking a corporation’s assault floor, is one other characteristic inclusion that makes it a best choice for these trying to handle vulnerabilities or stop future assaults.
Pricing
Orca affords a 30-day free trial. Contact Orca to get a quote.
Options
- Cloud compliance.
- Unified Knowledge Mannequin.
- Steady monitoring.
- Orca Safety Rating.
- Assault path evaluation.
- PII detection.
- Malware detection.
Orca Safety execs and cons
| Execs | Cons |
|---|---|
| Customers can create personalised views of Orca’s Threat Dashboard. | No pricing info is obtainable on its web site. |
| This answer affords a 30-day free trial. | |
| It helps organizations meet compliance with PCI-DSS, GDPR, HIPAA, and CCPA. | |
| Customers can generate complete cloud safety experiences and share them throughout numerous channels. | |
| Customers can write their very own alert queries or use over 1,300 prebuilt system queries. |
Prisma Cloud: Finest for multicloud environments
Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks affords complete visibility and management over the safety posture of deployed sources in multicloud environments. The answer will help customers implement immediate configurations with over 700 pre-defined insurance policies from greater than 120 cloud companies. That characteristic can support organizations in correcting typical multicloud misconfigurations, stopping potential safety breaches, and creating customized safety insurance policies. With Prisma Cloud, customers can even profit from steady compliance posture monitoring and one-click reporting, providing protection for numerous laws and requirements, together with CIS, GDPR, HIPAA, ISO-27001, NIST-800, PCI-DSS, and SOC 2. The answer additionally offers customized reporting.
SEE: What’s Cloud Safety? Elementary Information (TechRepublic)
Prisma Cloud affords community menace detection and person entity conduct analytics options, permitting prospects to establish uncommon community actions, DNS-based threats, and insider threats by monitoring billions of move logs obtained each week.
Why I selected Prisma Cloud
I chosen Prisma Cloud attributable to it being a top quality choice for organizations already using multicloud environments. With increasingly firms adopting multicloud, I notably recognize Prima Cloud’s pre-defined insurance policies and built-in community menace detection. These will help catch holes or danger areas throughout a number of cloud suppliers.
That is particularly essential with multicloud environments, as totally different cloud suppliers could not have seamless integration with each other and thus want extra monitoring for safety vulnerabilities.
Pricing
Contact Prisma Cloud for a quote.
Options
- Community menace detection.
- Consumer entity conduct analytics.
- Knowledge safety.
- Compliance reporting.
- Configuration evaluation.
- Automated remediation.
- Multi-cloud information visibility.
Prisma Cloud execs and cons
| Execs | Cons |
|---|---|
| Helps safety and compliance administration. | No pricing info on its web site. |
| Provides information governance with customizable insurance policies. | |
| Built-in menace detection dashboards. | |
| Consists of malware detection capabilities. | |
| Has a menace alert system. |
Wiz: Finest for managing identity-based publicity
Wiz is a CSPM device designed to repeatedly detect and remediate misconfigurations throughout notable clouds, together with AWS, GCP, Azure, OCI, Alibaba Cloud, and VMware vSphere. By establishing connections to customers’ cloud environments, Wiz delivers complete visibility and actionable context on customers’ crucial misconfigurations, enabling groups to boost their cloud safety posture. The answer additionally affords community and identification publicity, which facilitates the identification of uncovered sources by means of its graph-based community and identification engine.
SEE: Cybersecurity and Cyberwar (TechRepublic on Flipboard)
With its automated posture administration and remediation characteristic, customers can mechanically assess over 1,400 configuration guidelines throughout totally different cloud runtimes and infrastructure-as-code (IaC) frameworks. Moreover, customers can even construct customized guidelines utilizing the OPA (Rego) engine. Moreover, Wiz repeatedly assesses customers’ compliance posture towards greater than 100 built-in compliance frameworks. It additionally permits customers to outline customized compliance baselines and frameworks, providing flexibility and customization choices.
Why I selected Wiz
I picked Wiz for its give attention to identity-based safety, specifically for its identification misconfiguration and customized guidelines performance. This offers further safety for each excessive and low-profile customers, guaranteeing utmost safety irrespective of the place you’re in your organization’s organizational chart. I additionally preferred Wiz’s emphasis on identity-based publicity, as this helps stop unauthorized entry to delicate firm sources when there are misconfigured permissions inside a system.
Pricing
Contact Wiz for a quote.
Options
- Assault path evaluation.
- Compliance reporting.
- Computerized posture administration and remediation.
- Greater than 100 built-in compliance frameworks.
- Helps customized organizational compliance baseline.
Wiz execs and cons
| Execs | Cons |
|---|---|
| Community and identification misconfigurations are prioritized, specializing in crucial areas. | No pricing info on its web site. |
| It permits customers to outline their very own organizational compliance baseline. | |
| Groups can simply detect misconfigurations that pose the best menace. | |
| It affords built-in guidelines and automation. |
PingSafe: Finest for real-time cloud infrastructure monitoring
PingSafe mechanically assesses over 1,400 configuration guidelines that detect cloud misconfigurations. It has options that enable organizations to create customized insurance policies aligned with their distinctive safety necessities, safeguarding delicate information and sources towards potential threats. The software program additionally affords menace detection and remediation options to allow customers to observe the safety posture of their cloud infrastructure and see doable remediation steps. There’s additionally a context-aware alert system, which offers customers with notifications when misconfigurations happen. With real-time steady monitoring functionality, the software program will help safety groups get rid of blind spots throughout their cloud environments.
Why I selected PingSafe
I selected PingSafe for organizations that need a fixed monitoring device of their cloud surroundings. I envision PingSafe’s steady monitoring as a standout characteristic for IT departments which might be proactively in search of weaknesses of their group’s system.
That is particularly helpful for bigger organizations given their complicated construction, presumably making them extra inclined to wide-scale information breaches or exploits.
Pricing
Contact PingSafe for a quote.
Options
- Context-aware alerts.
- Constructed-in guidelines.
- Actual-time detection and remediation.
- Customized question help.
- Asset discovery and real-time monitoring.
PingSafe execs and cons
| Execs | Cons |
|---|---|
| The agentless onboarding course of eliminates cloud prices and reduces agent vulnerabilities related to the agent-based strategy. | No pricing info on its web site. |
| Steady scanning of cloud property offers customers with a complete view of potential vulnerabilities and threats. | |
| Organizations can tailor insurance policies to their particular wants. | |
| Context-aware alerts present customers with actionable insights, permitting them to rapidly handle misconfigurations. |
Lacework Polygraph Knowledge Platform: Finest for stock administration and compliance
Lacework Polygraph Knowledge Platform permits for environment friendly stock administration of property throughout customers’ cloud environments. It retains observe of every day stock modifications, even for property that now not exist, guaranteeing an up-to-date understanding of the cloud infrastructure. With a unified platform for AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and Kubernetes configurations, Lacework affords customers a consolidated view of their compliance throughout cloud suppliers.
As a CSPM, Lacework additionally offers automated monitoring and detection of misconfigurations and suspicious cloud actions. As well as, Lacework permits customers to evaluate their posture and compliance towards a number of pre-built insurance policies, together with PCI, HIPAA, NIST, ISO 27001, and SOC 2. Customers can even set customized insurance policies throughout cloud suppliers to satisfy their organizational necessities.
Why I selected Lacework Polygraph Knowledge Platform
I chosen Lacework for its helpful stock administration of a corporation’s cloud property. To me, that is crucial for organizations that work totally on the cloud, because it removes the legwork of recording and managing these property and organizes them in a extra environment friendly and automatic method.
This additionally permits members of a corporation to give attention to their priorities and firm targets with out sacrificing total safety of their cloud environments.
Pricing
Contact Lacework for a quote.
Options
- Pre-built and customized insurance policies.
- Assault path evaluation.
- Menace detection.
- Push button experiences.
Lacework execs and cons
| Execs | Cons |
|---|---|
| Customers can set customized insurance policies throughout cloud suppliers. | No pricing info on its web site. |
| With push-button experiences, customers can rapidly show their safety posture and compliance to prospects, companions and auditors. | |
| Customers can create customized experiences in a number of codecs. | |
| It permits seamless integration with instruments like Jira and Slack. |
CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Safety: Finest for adversary-focused menace intelligence
One other CSPM device to think about is Crowdstrike Falcon Cloud Safety. It affords agentless monitoring of cloud sources to detect misconfigurations, vulnerabilities, and safety threats. It adopts an adversary-focused strategy, equipping customers with real-time menace intelligence on over 230+ adversary teams and 50 indicators of assault.
This platform additionally offers multicloud visibility, steady monitoring, menace detection and prevention capabilities whereas imposing safety posture and compliance throughout AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud. As well as, Crowdstrike Falcon Cloud Safety affords indicators of cloud infrastructure misconfigurations.
Why I selected CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Safety
CrowdStrike Falcon marked its identify on my record for its prioritization of adversary-focused threats. For organizations which might be particularly involved with assaults, Falcon Cloud Safety’s database of adversary teams offers reassurance that your chosen CSPM device is proactive in its safety. I personally recognize CrowdStrike’s efforts to repeatedly develop its record of adversary teams, particularly within the face of AI-based threats and know-how.
Pricing
Crowdstrike affords 4 pricing choices with a 15-day free trial:
- Falcon Go: Begins at $4.99 per gadget, per thirty days.
- Falcon Professional: Begins at $99.99 per gadget, per yr.
- Falcon Enterprise: $184.99 per gadget, per yr.
- Falcon Elite: Contact gross sales for pricing.
Options
- Steady compliance monitoring.
- DevSecOps integration.
- Agentless monitoring.
- Actual-time menace intelligence.
CrowdStrike execs and cons
| Execs | Cons |
|---|---|
| Simplified administration and safety coverage enforcement. | Interface could also be complicated for some customers. |
| Provides guided remediation. | |
| Gives unified visibility throughout hybrid and multicloud environments. | |
| Gives real-time menace intelligence on adversary teams and indicators of assaults. | |
| Integrates with safety info and occasion administration options. |
Tenable Cloud Safety: Finest for dev and manufacturing environments
Tenable Cloud Safety offers its customers with a framework for imposing insurance policies throughout multicloud environments. Providing a number of pre-developed insurance policies, it permits customers to use {industry} benchmarks like these from the Middle for Web Safety and different requirements or create customized insurance policies. With Tenable, safety groups can scan their cloud surroundings to establish misconfigurations underneath a unified dashboard.
As a CSPM device, Tenable affords options that may curiosity customers resembling an automatic workflow that aids collaboration between DevOps and safety groups, automated compliance standing reporting, cloud stock visibility, and the capability to prioritize dangers based mostly on their stage of severity.
Why I selected Tenable Cloud Safety
I chosen Tenable Cloud Safety as a doable answer for developer and manufacturing groups that need strengthened safety for his or her cloud infrastructure. Of its options, I discovered Tenable’s automated workflow to be particularly efficient in embedding safety into the event pipeline. This might assist detecting and remediating dangers, whereas permitting builders to make changes when essential.
Pricing
Contact Tenable for a quote.
Options
- Unified framework.
- DevOps integration.
- Configuration drift monitoring.
- Auto-remediation.
Tenable Cloud Safety execs and cons
| Execs | Cons |
|---|---|
| This answer makes it simple to detect high-risk configurations that would result in breaches. | No pricing info on its web site. |
| Customers can simply implement and report compliance with pre-packaged governance profiles. | |
| It affords risk-based scoring to find out menace severity. | |
| It facilitates collaboration between DevOps and safety groups by means of automated workflows. | |
| Free trial is obtainable. |
Key options of cloud safety posture administration software program
The next options are generally present in each top-quality CSPM software program choice.
CSPM instruments assist customers preserve a safe cloud posture by recommending greatest practices and imposing safety insurance policies throughout all cloud accounts and companies. These insurance policies can embody entry controls, encryption settings, community configurations, and extra. By automating the enforcement course of, CSPM software program minimizes the chance of misconfigurations and unintentional publicity of delicate information.
Compliance monitoring and reporting
Compliance with numerous requirements and laws is a prime precedence for any cloud-first group. CSPM options facilitate compliance monitoring by often auditing cloud environments towards industry-specific requirements resembling PCI DSS, HIPAA, GDPR, SOC 2, and extra. These instruments generate complete experiences and dashboards that assist organizations perceive their compliance standing, establish gaps, and take essential actions to satisfy regulatory necessities.
Cloud asset stock and visibility
Sustaining an correct stock of cloud property is important for efficient safety posture administration. CSPM instruments present visibility into a corporation’s cloud infrastructure, together with digital machines, storage accounts, databases, and different sources.
Actual-time cloud infrastructure monitoring
CSPM software program offers steady real-time monitoring of cloud customers’ infrastructure. This enables organizations to promptly detect potential safety threats and vulnerabilities, enabling them to reply rapidly and mitigate dangers successfully.
How to decide on the perfect cloud safety posture administration software program for your enterprise
Choosing the proper CSPM software program is a crucial resolution that impacts the safety and compliance of your cloud infrastructure. To make an knowledgeable selection, take into account the next steps:
Assess your group’s cloud posture administration wants
Earlier than going with any of the CSPM options, conduct an in-depth evaluation of your group’s cloud safety necessities. Establish the particular challenges, compliance requirements, and cloud suppliers you’re employed with to discover a answer that greatest aligns together with your goals.
Consider key options
Consider every software program based mostly on its skill to satisfy your group’s wants. Prioritize options that instantly handle your safety issues and streamline your cloud safety administration course of.
Think about scalability
Be sure that the CSPM software program you select is scalable and might accommodate the increasing calls for of your cloud surroundings.
Think about ease of use
Consumer-friendliness is necessary as your IT workforce will likely be working with the CSPM software program often. A simple and intuitive interface can improve productiveness and make it simpler for organizations to navigate and implement safety measures successfully.
Request demos and trials
Earlier than making a closing resolution, you may wish to get a grasp of the product utilizing its demo or trial model. Thankfully, variety of CSPM device suppliers supply entry to free trials with no further value.
Methodology
To find out the perfect CSPM device obtainable in 2024, I first performed an in-depth evaluation of the related suppliers, figuring out the main CSPM options out there in the present day. Subsequent, I assessed every software program’s options, compliance capabilities, and total scalability to ensure they align with numerous organizational wants. I additionally analyzed buyer suggestions and opinions from Gartner Peer Insights to higher perceive person experiences and the effectiveness of every answer.