The benefits of rich cloud environments are widely known, but their complexity has blurred the lines between infrastructure and application layers. The traditional security approach has been to address either infrastructure or application incidents independently. However, this fragmented strategy has proven inadequate, allowing attackers to exploit gaps between these layers to evade detection. As cloud threats evolve and become more sophisticated, the need for runtime in cloud security becomes increasingly apparent.

The Challenge – Detecting Modern Cloud Attacks

The challenge lies in detecting modern cloud attacks, where adversaries are stealth and adeptly exploit multiple attack surfaces—from code manipulation to compute resource compromise— all while evading detection by disparate security solutions.

Current tools often operate in isolation, each providing partial visibility into specific aspects such as infrastructure misconfigurations, identity management issues, or image vulnerabilities. This siloed approach hinders the correlation of data across attack surfaces, leaving organizations vulnerable to sophisticated attacks that traverse multiple fronts.

To effectively combat these evolving threats, it is imperative to consolidate security capabilities into a single, cohesive platform and introduce runtime visibility. This integrated approach not only strengthens detection and response capabilities but also supports hardening measures such as risk and identity management.  

By adopting a unified security strategy, organizations can better protect their cloud environments and stay ahead in the face of increasingly complex cloud threats.

From Code to Compute – Detect the Undetected

At Sweet, we advocate for a holistic perspective that integrates runtime monitoring and protection across a wide spectrum of elements including cloud environments, applications, workloads, containers, NHIs, APIs, Layer 7, and CI/CD pipelines. This unified approach extends further by incorporating deep cyber offensive knowledge and threat intelligence. By conducting thorough application profiling, we utilize behavioral analysis that enhances our ability to detect anomalies and respond effectively to emerging threats.

The Key Use Cases for Runtime Protection

As attackers continue to evolve, so too must our defenses.Runtime-backed cloud security is not just a necessity but a strategic imperative in safeguarding complex environments that hold our most critical assets. And when coupled with runtime insights, cloud application security tools can provide unparalleled visibility and control over the entire application environment.

Let’s explore the key use-cases of a runtime protection within a cloud security framework:

Risk Management

Applications are modified daily, making it challenging to keep up with every new vulnerability introduced. Instead of being overwhelmed by the volume of potential issues, teams need a way to funnel out noise and focus on the vulnerabilities that pose an immediate threat.

Runtime protection provides crucial insights into which vulnerabilities are actively being exploited or are most likely to be targeted. By leveraging these insights, application security teams can prioritize high-risk vulnerabilities, especially those affecting business-critical workloads, and implement proactive mitigation strategies. This approach also helps in reducing the attack surface and ensures that security efforts are directed towards the most pressing threats.

Environment Hardening

Integrating security seamlessly into the development process is essential for effective environment hardening. This involves embedding runtime measures from the inception of the development lifecycle, validating vulnerabilities identified during testing, and enabling automated, developer-led remediation workflows.

Runtime insights play a vital role in this process by providing actionable data on application interactions and potential vulnerabilities. For example:

1. Reducing the attack surface by deprecating NHIs, services, or other cloud assets no longer in use
2. Preventing privilege escalations and lateral movement by adjusting privileges for human and non-human identities based on ACTUAL usage
3. Enforcing security policies, such as ensuring your containers adhere to read only file systems

Notably, non-human identities (NHIs) have emerged as a significant risk in cloud environments, often operating outside the visibility of traditional security measures. NHIs can create blind spots, making identity proliferation and its management increasingly challenging. Addressing NHIs at runtime and ensuring they are part of the security strategy from the start is crucial for a hardened environment.

Detection and Response

The best way to proactively stop cloud attacks is through effective detection and response capabilities across your cloud and applications. Security teams shouldn’t have to choose what threats they’re protected against. Monitoring cloud, application, and container layers in a single platform provides the widest coverage and protection. By correlating application activity with infrastructure changes in real-time, attacks will no longer be able to slip through the cracks. Once an incident is detected, SOC teams need context in order to investigate fast, such as comprehensive attack stories, damage assessments, and response playbooks.

The Role of Runtime in Cloud Security

Runtime security, a cornerstone of modern defenses, goes beyond mere detection and response. It actively monitors and correlates application-level activity with underlying infrastructure changes, such as container and IaC configurations. This proactive stance not only fortifies defenses but also bridges the gap between development and security teams, fostering a collaborative approach to application protection.

To effectively safeguard cloud-native applications against modern threats, organizations must adopt runtime security solutions that span development and production environments. By integrating monitoring, detection, and response capabilities into a single platform, businesses will not only enhance their security posture but also streamline operations and mitigate risks effectively.

Ready to implement runtime protection? Contact us today!