|
|
Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) encompasses security across cloud infrastructures such as Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Software as a Service (SaaS), and Platform as a Service (PaaS) services. It applies the best practices universally across multi-cloud, hybrid, and container systems and focuses on compliance monitoring, incident response, and DevOps integrations. Cloud environments are powerful because of their flexibility and on-demand availability of various resources but are prone to cyber attacks as vendors neglect built-in security by default. Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) tools bridge potential gaps in these environments and provide users with the resources required to keep organizations running efficiently whilst enhancing productivity and performance.
This guide will discuss the major benefits of using cloud security posture management solutions for your business and tell you the best CSPM Tools in the industry.
What is CSPM?
Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) continuously identifies, monitors, and remediates risks by automating threat monitoring, vulnerability management, and analysis.
CSPM searches for misconfigurations in hybrid and multi-cloud environments, such as the likes of PaaS (Platform as a Service), SaaS (Software as a Service), and IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service), and attempts to fix them. It also makes compliance recommendations and ensures that organizations follow the industry’s latest and best cloud security standards.
What are the CSPM Tools?
CSPM Tools are software programs designed to monitor cloud infrastructure environments continuously, address misconfigurations, enforce security policies, and ensure continuous data privacy and compliance.
The top CSPM tools in the market are SentinelOne, Check Point CloudGuard, BMC Helix Cloud Security, and Cyscale.
Top 10 CSPM Tools in 2024
The best CSPM Tools can safeguard your organization and prevent losses of up to billions of dollars by ensuring that data shared and transmitted stays compliant. Cloud security is constantly evolving, and as the threat landscape gets sophisticated, enterprises need to keep up and adapt to the latest technologies. These solutions will also provide enhanced visibility into cloud environments and help users predict when the next vulnerability could occur by offering in-depth and relevant threat analysis.
Here are the top 10 CSPM Tools list for your reference.
1.SentinelOne
SentinelOne is the world’s most advanced AI-driven Cloud-Native Application Protection Platform (CNAPP) that provides 360-degree security for cloud VMs, containers, and serverless functions. Being an industry favorite among top CSPM tools in 2024, it adopts Offensive Security practices and identifies exploits at every stage of the cloud development, deployment, and delivery lifecycle. SentinelOne offers continuous Cloud Compliance Monitoring for over 20+ industry standards and regulations like the ISO 27001, PCI-DSS, and NIST. It can also detect more than 750+ secret types and cloud credentials in public repositories and performs real-time Secret Scanning for enterprises.
Features
- Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) automatically detects and remediates cloud misconfigurations
- Infrastructure as Code (IaC) enforces Shift-left security and detects misconfigurations across CloudFormation, Terraform, and other IaC templates
- Agentless vulnerability management, deep forensic visibility, and real-time Secret Scanning for more than 750+ types of cloud secrets
- PurpleAI, Binary Vault, Singularity Data Lake Integration, 1-click remediation, Explorer Graph, and Cloud Data Security (CDS)
- Cloud Workload Protection Platform (CWPP), Offensive Security Engine, Kubernetes Security Posture Management (KSPM), and SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) capabilities
- CI/CD integration support, Snyk integration, zero-day vulnerability assessments, and offensive security engine
- Supports CloudFormation, Terraform, Helm, and other popular IaC templates
Pros
- Intuitive, user-friendly interface and robust cloud security measures
- Great customer support service, training, and documentation
- Multi-cloud security posture management, VM snapshot scans, and native integrations with BitBucket, GitHub, and GitLab
- Proactive cloud threat detection, custom search and queries, and event analyzer capabilities
- Integrates with Jira and Slack and remediates MongoDB Atlas and CloudFlare misconfigurations
- Achieves full compliance with PCI/DSS, HIPAA, SOC2, ISO, CIS, and more
Cons
- None at the moment
2. Cyscale
Cyscale is a top CSPM tool that improves your security team’s productivity by more than 65%. It remediates critical vulnerabilities, automates contextual analysis, and provides actionable insights after identifying key organizational risks. Cyscale secures businesses by uncovering potential hidden threats and tells them what it takes to stay protected in today’s ever-evolving cloud cyber security landscape.
Features
- Asset inventory management
- Multi-cloud support
- Powerful dashboards and integrations
- Custom controls, alerts, and notifications
- Inline evidence collection and policy editor
Pros
- Maintains continuous regulatory compliance
- Deploys cloud infrastructures in AWS, Azure, GCP, OpenStack, VMWare, IBM Cloud, and Oracle Cloud
- Cloud security asset libraries and assessments
- Enforces the latest data privacy standards
Cons
- No mobile application
3. CrowdStrike Falcon Horizon
CrowdStrike Falcon Horizon offers agentless threat detection and is aimed at organizations that want to defend their premises and protect public cloud environments from hackers. It provides unified visibility into cloud infrastructures, continuous monitoring, and compliance for multi-cloud environments. Businesses can change or edit infrastructure components according to their and deploy applications on the cloud using this solution. It is one of the top CSPM tools and helps DevSecOps teams resolve security issues quickly.
Features
- Quad rails allow developers to fix critical mistakes
- Secures cloud application deployments
- Seamless SIEM integrations
- Unified visibility and cloud configuration management
Pros
- Reduces alert fatigue with targeted threat detection
- Discovers cloud misconfigurations and automatically remediates them
- Provides actionable insights into entire security infrastructures and cloud analytics
4. Orca Security
Orca Security continuously detects cloud security posture management risks within organizations and takes immediate action to remediate them. It monitors for policy violations, changes in workloads and configurations, and among the emerging CSPM tools in 2024. Orca also provides event monitoring and is the future of cloud security posture management solutions as it can ensure all the relevant tools and practices are in place, following the latest industry and regulatory standards.
Features
- Maps attack paths and prioritizes risks.
- Checks cloud configurations and policies across 65+ industry and regulatory frameworks
- Discovers sensitive information and potential vulnerabilities and helps organizations achieve compliance with mandates like the HIPAA, CCPA, GDPR, and PCI-DSS
Pros
- Users can write custom queries
- Forwards alert to PagerDuty, OpsGenie, and Slack
- Automates ticketing on ServiceNow, Jira, and many more
- Generates comprehensive email reports, updates, and alerts
Cons
- UI is not very intuitive
- No visibility for on-premise environments
5. Scrut Automation
Scrut automation empowers users by providing continuous threat monitoring and data protection. It gives real-time feedback contextual analysis, encrypts data, and reviews access management controls employed by organizations to test their effectiveness. Scrut has centralized dashboards, is one of the top CSPM tools of 2024, and mitigates cloud security risks too.
Features
- Audit, policy enforcement, and anomaly detection
- Workflow management, governance, and data loss prevention
- Compliance monitoring, cloud gap analytics, and cloud asset inventory management
- Questionnaire templates
Pros
- Comprehensive risk visibility and analysis
- Compliance workflow automation
- Continuous threat control monitoring and workload protection
- Improves audit-readiness
Cons
- Not all manual processes are automated
6. Zscaler Cloud Protection
As one of the leading CSPM tools in the industry, Zscaler Cloud Protection can secure cloud traffic, monitor workloads, and eliminate the risk of lateral movement across multi-cloud environments. It offers proper configuration management and compliance in all platforms, unified policy management, and several APIs and integrations. There are adaptive access control tools available, and Zscaler is known for its intensive threat-hunting and asset-discovery capabilities.
Features
- Integrates with Active Directory
- Cloud-based proxy, malware analysis, and threat detection
- Remote traffic filtering
- Zero trust architecture
Pros
- Minimizes attack surfaces
- Prevents lateral movements in networks
- Enhances cloud workload security
- Secures remote access to private clouds, hybrid, and multi-cloud environments
Cons
- The setup process has issues and may take time
7. Turbot
Turbot is a cutting-edge cloud governance platform that enables real-time security automation. It is one of the top CSPM tools in 2024 and helps enterprises streamline their configuration management practices. DevOps teams can improve organization agility and compliance and implement continuous security by using it.
Features
- Integrates with third-party apps
- State-of-the-art enterprise security controls and multi-cloud compliance management
- Credentials management, data protection, and whitelisting services
- AMIs and DB engines, permission management, and network firewalling
Pros
- Very simple, easy-to-use, and intuitive interface
- Ensures continuous adherence to centrally-defined policies across multi-account AWS models
Cons
- There are better alternatives in the market feature-wise
8. CloudCheckr
CloudCheckr helps organizations maintain security and compliance, improving security posture management for multi-cloud infrastructures. It can optimize cloud spend by up to 30% (or more!) and is one of the best CSPM tools. Users can share insights from data analytics with colleagues and track growth across AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud spaces.
Features
- Automated threat remediation and resource management
- Audits across 35+ standards and continuous compliance
- Free cloud checkups and assessments
Pros
- CloudTrail integrations, cost tracking, and S3 reporting
- Easy setup and maintenance
Cons
- Work on the support feature is delayed sometimes
- May break without warning rarely
9. Fugue
Fugue is considered one of the most popular CSPM tools in the industry and ranks #22 in the worldwide list among cloud security posture management solutions. It can detect infrastructure misconfigurations, provide policy enforcement, and streamline DevOps workflows by automating cloud lifecycle management.
Features
- Customized reporting and analytics
- Advanced cloud-native unified security
- Drift detection and automated threat remediation
- Resource visualizer and resource data engine
Pros
- Cloud account management
- Real-time cloud-native protection
- Enhanced visibility and superior reports
Cons
- It may be expensive for some enterprises
10. Aqua Security
Aqua Security is one of the best CSPM tools to offer advanced cloud security posture management and protection features from development, production, and deployment. It supports businesses with automated incident response and detection and proactively scans serverless workloads, containers, and VMs for misconfigurations and security issues. Organizations can enhance their security with real-time monitoring, compliance checks, and more.
Features
- Unified cloud protection throughout the software development lifecycle
- CI/CD posture management, automated SBOM generation, and analysis
- Open-source health scoring and code repository discovery
- SCM toolchain integrity and governance
- Vulnerability scanning and integrity checks
Pros
- Strong runtime security protection
- Great sandboxing service
- Drift prevention makes images immutable
Cons
- Has usability issues with UI/UX and alerts
Benefits of CSPM Tools
- Identifies Cloud Security Risks and Provides Threat Remediation
CSPMs enable organizations to defend their cloud assets and detect potential risks proactively. Many developers neglect security by design and fail to address them when pushing the latest releases for upcoming products and services. CSPMs monitor for data risks in services and applications and ensure that organization networks don’t stay exposed and mitigate risks immediately.
- Fixes Cloud Misconfigurations
Cloud misconfigurations can lead to cases to account hijacking, unauthorized data access, misuse, and data duplication. CSPM tools fix cloud misconfigurations and ensure users take personal accountability for shared data. They protect sensitive information and ensure that the data transmitted across cloud environments comply with the latest industry standards and regulations.
- Implements Principle of Least Privilege Access
The principle of least privilege access prevents unwanted privilege escalations, thereby eliminating lateral movement in networks. Cloud security posture management (CSPM) tools also create zero trust network access (ZTNA) architectures in organizations where all user credentials are validated, and nobody is granted access to sensitive data purely based on trust alone. The CSPM vendor will set boundaries for data access with these tools and ensure they aren’t overstepped, thus drastically reducing the margin of human error and preventing data breaches.
How do you choose the best CSPM tool?
Cloud Security Posture Management Tools are known to identify and address critical cloud-based vulnerabilities and misconfigurations.
When selecting a modern CSPM tool, an enterprise should take into account the following criteria and considerations:
IaC Security – The CSPM must be able to scan Infrastructure as Code (IaC) during development and deployment. It should be able to monitor runtime environments continuously and automatically set IaC baselines to ensure optimal security.
Compliance Support – It should be able to support the latest security standards like PCI-DSS, NIST, HIPAA, etc.
Integrations – Modern CSPM tools are expected to support seamless integrations with CI/CD pipelines, other cloud services, and DevOps workflows.
Reporting and Analytics – Being able to export compliance reports and collect the necessary threat intelligence for analysis is a must. Advanced analytics powered by AI and ML can help security analysts predict emerging attacks and address root causes of security vulnerabilities in organizations before they are identified, taken advantage of, and escalated.
Conclusion
Cloud security posture management is unique and different for every organization. No matter the platform or tool you choose, it’s essential to understand your business requirements before investing in any of these solutions. The good news is that these CSPM Tools can provide proactive protection and ensure your organization stays up-to-date with remediating the latest threats.
