The Basics of a CIEM Solution and Why It’s Needed

The Basics of a CIEM Solution and Why It’s Needed

As per 2020 data, six out of 10 businesses have moved their operations to the cloud. Several cloud service providers and organizations have the flexibility of working with more than a cloud service provider to meet their business needs. Though multi-cloud environments minimize the risk of data loss and downtime for businesses, they also increase risk. 

Cloud security experts mention CIEM can help businesses secure their multi-cloud environment. Here is a look at the basics of the CIEM solution

What Is CIEM? 

CIEM is short for Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management. It refers to the next generation of cloud security solutions used to manage permissions and entitlements in cloud infrastructure. CIEM can be helpful to address the limitations of Identity and Access Management solutions and enforce the least privileged access model in the cloud. 

Today’s cloud security solutions are required to go beyond cloud-native identity-centric solutions and prove effective in hybrid and multiple cloud platforms by continuously enforcing the principle of least privileges at scale.

Understanding Principle of Least Privilege 

 The Principle of Least Privilege refers to the enforcement of the access model in which cloud users get privileged access only to perform specific tasks related to their job role or function. For example, a sales department user will not have access to any files or functions related to administration or accountancy and vice versa. 

Cloud security experts vouch for the privileges access principle as it reduces the enterprise’s attack surface and protects the organization’s high-priority assets. CIEM solution allows companies to continuously monitor, manage and discover activities of every identity in a multi-cloud user environment. It eliminates the need to employ separate IAM solutions for different cloud user environments that can be difficult to manage. 

CIEM can monitor human or non-human identities, including apps and functions in on-premise infrastructure. It can proactively send alerts to security teams when it identifies any abnormal activity of the cloud user or when unexpected risk arises due to external factors. 

The security solution can provide enforcement of the least privilege principle across cloud infrastructure boundaries and also provide automated right-sizing of the user privileges based on the user function. 

Why Do Organizations Need CIEM? 

Though the cloud security platforms offer in-built security tools to manage and secure cloud assets, their reach is only limited to the cloud platforms they are devised for. Cloud platform technology and infrastructures are rapidly evolving, and traditional cloud security tools cannot address the new risks multi-cloud users face. Here are a few reasons why organizations need CIEM. 

SIEM is Inadequate for Multi-Cloud User Environments

SIEM is short for Security Information and Event Management. It refers to a set of security tools that offer a holistic view of an organization’s information security. Cloud security experts mention that SIEM combines two security technologies like security information management and security event management. SIEM provides event log management and real-time visibility of the organization’s information security systems. 

The SIEM security solution matches events against the rules. It uses analytics engines to index events and proactively performs a sub-second search to detect and analyze threats using globally gathered intelligence.

The SIEM security tools provide cloud security teams to determine event correlation, data analysis, report, and log management within the IT environment. Though SIME covers prime security areas like threat detection, investigation, and response, it has problems detecting some incoming data articles that leave a huge security gap in the multi-cloud user environment. 

Advanced Cloud Technology Demands Advanced Security Solutions 

In the mid-2000s, enterprise security teams gathered server logs to detect any threats. However, information technology has grown by leaps and bounds in the past decade, and the security solutions of the mid-2000s are no longer effective in new IT scenarios. 

Multi-cloud user and hybrid cloud processes are entirely different, and inherent Identity and Access Management solutions cannot monitor every aspect of multi-cloud user identities. 

Without effective identity and user access management, organizations face a considerable risk of compromised business systems operating in the cloud. CIEM tools make IAM across multi-cloud infrastructures more effective and protect business systems and data. 

CIEM Helps Security Teams Find New Risk

Technology advancement is a double-edged sword. While new technology helps developers create new security tools, it helps hackers find new loopholes and devise innovative ways to attack cloud platforms. 

Non-people identities are known to perform repetitive actions every day. CIEM tools continuously scan for unusual actions of non-people that could indicate misuse or tampering of credentials within a cloud environment.

Businesses are required to add new services to support growth, and security teams must track and monitor these new services’ permissions. CIEM security tools can help security manage new services and reduce the workload of security teams to some extent. 

Now that you know what CIEM is and why it is needed, you can enhance the security of your cloud infrastructure by choosing the best CIEM solution for your business.

Leave a Comment