BlogAmong enterprise C-level leaders, "cloud-native" is becoming a strategic imperative for several reasons. Cloud-native applications are purposefully designed and deployed using agile methods to support flexibility and scalability in the cloud. The implementation of cloud-native applications is thus more efficient and lends itself to automation.
While this defines cloud-native in the simplest of terms, there are several implications for security operations, from the migration process to collaborative efforts in securing the hybrid attack surface.
The Relationship Between Cloud-Native and Security
The recent 451 Research report, "The Impact and Evolution of Cloud Native," suggests that cloud-native architectures are more economical because they are driven by multiple microservices. Businesses can easily scale when they need to, making software deployment and development a much simpler and more cost-effective process.
From a security perspective, however, the shift to the cloud can feel like a double-edged sword. While there are opportunities to save costs and minimize on-site maintenance, 84% of organizations report that traditional security solutions don't work in cloud environments. Weaknesses include the risk of misconfigurations, unauthorized access, and insecure APIs that go unnoticed and unreported.
Taking a cloud-native approach to security can help alleviate that stress. A cloud-native solution minimizes privacy risks and migration roadblocks that legacy on-premise tools and workflows can cause due to a lack of visibility across cloud workloads and assets. However, it's important to note that cloud-native tools aren't limited to use in the cloud. They can also be leveraged for on-premise security systems to streamline future efforts.
Cloud-native security also encourages cross-team collaboration by removing the data silos between security teams and developers. It's essential that DevOps teams have easy access to security information as part of their workflows, because responsiblity for the security of cloud applications and workloads resides largely with the customer. If the people actively spinning up new instances aren't fully aligned with SecOps, cloud-native development introduces potentially unmanageable risk to the business.
The best cloud-native security tools provide real-time detection of rogue instances, unauthorized access, and cyberattackers within the perimeter. Although cloud service providers like AWS and Microsoft Azure offer security tools, these rely on log data which generates surface-level insights. As a result, they don't detect behavioral patterns or unreported rogue instances.
SecOps teams need agile and scalable cloud-native security tools to support their DevOps—and ExtraHop Reveal(x) Cloud fits this mold with cloud-native network detection and response (NDR). Through a single interface, both teams can maintain comprehensive visibility of cloud traffic and detect security anomalies in real time, with guided investigations and automated threat response workflows backed by advanced machine learning and native integrations with AWS.
To learn more about the value that Reveal(x) Cloud can bring to your security operations, watch the 5-minute introductory video below:
