Mitigate Risks to Cloud Workloads with CWPP

Organisations have the potential to be exposed and are vulnerable to a host of new cloud-native attack vectors when they move their workloads to a public cloud infrastructure. Over the years, tried and tested security capabilities have been developed to reliably protect data centres from external intrusion.

Firewalls, Intrusion Prevention and Detection Systems (IPS/IDS), Web Application Firewalls (WAF), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) protection, Secure Web Gateways (SWGs), and other perimeter-based security techniques are some of the primary means used to ensure the safeguard of applications.

Nonetheless, the shared responsibility paradigm that has resulted in the shift to the cloud has meant enterprises (and IT administrators) losing direct physical control over their workloads.

Now that everything is hosted on the cloud, those who were once considered “insiders” in the premises-based world are now the “outsiders.” Standard connection techniques, protocols and public APIs have made publicly hosted workloads equally accessible for IT managers and hackers alike. This makes every person on this planet, a potential “Pandora’s box.” This is where Cloud Workload Protection Platform (CWPP) comes into play.

What is CWPP?

CWPP is a full-featured cloud security solution that gives businesses the best possible defence against cyber-attacks and data breaches in today’s cloud era. Physical servers, virtual machines (VM), containers, and serverless applications are all protected as they migrate between cloud providers.

The software implements adaptive access controls to prevent harmful activity, lessen the likelihood of false alarms, and maintain users’ anonymity. It allows users to see what is going on in the cloud, with the option to dive deeper into certain workloads and extract logs for analysis. IT Security Operations Centre (SOC) teams are equipped to detect problems, investigate their sources, and set priorities for resolving them.

CWPP Offers Top Defence for Your Cloud

According to Gartner, these are the eight core CWPP’s capabilities that deliver the best possible defence:

1. Vulnerability management, configuration, and hardening: Even before code is released into the wild, CWPPs can be used to make sure it is safe against vulnerabilities and flaws.

• Firewalling, visibility, and micro-segmentation of networks: In addition to securing a network, a CWPP can also divide it into smaller, more manageable portions. The latter term refers to breaking a network up into smaller segments so that an attacker cannot take down the whole thing in one fell swoop.

• System integrity protection: An effective CWPP ensures that cloud services deliver as promised.

• Application management and permit listing: A CWPP either approves or rejects an application from an approved list.

• Prevention of exploits and memory protection: Protection against exploitation of vulnerabilities in operating software are what CWPPs are all about.

• Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR), behavioural monitoring, and threat identification for server workload endpoints: Changes in server or application behaviour that seem out of character, or threats already in progress, are addressed by CWPPs.

• Integrated host-based intrusion prevention and vulnerability shielding: CWPPs safeguard servers from intrusion from the outside world.

• Virus and malware scanning: CWPPs scan cloud workloads for malware.

These features can be implemented by CWPPs across all workload types, from traditional servers to virtual machines, containers and serverless applications.

Hillstone CloudArmour – Complete Cloud Workload Security

If you are looking for a CWPP that can safeguard your containers, virtual machines, and other cloud-based workloads, look no further than Hillstone CloudArmour. CloudArmour enables your organisation to significantly improve its cyber resilience by allowing you to: SEE the full scope of all cloud workloads, UNDERSTAND the interaction of all assets via behaviour modelling, and ACT decisively with control across your enterprise with micro-segmentation, AI-enhanced detection, and leverage years of runtime behaviour modelling to thwart bad actors.

Among the biggest benefits of Hillstone CloudArmour include:

• Agility: You can leverage cloud-native technology for easy and fast deployment.
• High reliability and efficiency: Cloud-native architecture results in a short fault detection path, with low compute resource requirements and compatibility with various Carrier Network Infrastructure (CNI) modes.
• Ease of use: Easy to manage, with a graphical interface, self-synchronisation of assets, and self-learning policies.
• Zero interference: Simple control of enabled functions and low business interference.

Hillstone CloudArmour has proven its worth in key production deployments across industries including finance and utilities thanks to its superior monitoring capabilities, proven intrusion detection and response features, and learning-enhanced behaviour modelling.

Click here to find out more about Hillstone’s CloudArmour.