The scale and complexity of cloud environments is transforming cybersecurity requirements, requiring agile and sophisticated response to emerging threats. Cloud attacks unfold incredibly quickly, sometimes within minutes, making the difference between containment and catastrophic damage. According to the Sysdig 2023 Global Cloud Threats ReportCloud attacks can be completely carried out in just 10 minutes. This rapid implementation forces security teams to meet what is required 555 cloud detection and response standardsFive minutes to detect, five minutes to relate and sort, and five minutes to respond.
These high risks expose the inadequacy of traditional endpoint detection and response (EDR) tools, which do not meet the dynamic and fast-paced world of the cloud. Standard 555 emphasizes the urgent need for cloud-native detection and response capabilities to effectively combat cloud threats.
The complexity of securing the cloud
The dynamic nature of cloud environments makes detecting threats complex. As new cloud resources emerge, the attack surface expands significantly, generating a large amount of data and alerts. This “noise” makes it difficult to identify real threats amid the constant stream of cloud activity. Traditional security measures, designed for more static environments, struggle to keep up with the dynamic scale of cloud infrastructures. Furthermore, associating events with specific identities in the cloud is complex, as identities and permissions can change frequently, which increases the complexity of detecting and responding to threats.
These difficulties are compounded by the fact that attackers are leveraging artificial intelligence to craft complex, highly adaptive threats that are evolving at unprecedented speeds. Adversaries use automated scans to relentlessly search for vulnerabilities and initial access points, as well as automated reconnaissance algorithms to map cloud environments accurately and quickly.
Why does EDR fail in the cloud?
Many organizations have chosen a temporary cloud security strategy by extending their existing EDR solutions to cover their cloud environments. This approach is fundamentally flawed because EDR focuses on detecting host-level threats and lacks the visibility required to fully understand the cloud context. This creates significant gaps in detection and response capabilities.
Incidents in the cloud are complex and multidimensional, making it difficult for EDR to correlate and contextualize events across multiple domains. This forces security analysts to manually aggregate disparate detections into coherent incidents, which is time-consuming and error-prone. EDR solutions cannot provide the visibility, context, and visibility of cloud-native services that security teams need to stay ahead of attackers.
As a result, trying to leverage EDR in the cloud has bottlenecked security operations across multiple lines of business. EDR solutions are too slow and insufficient to detect, correlate, and respond to threats in the cloud.
Cloud detection and response paves the way forward
With cloud threats evolving at breakneck speed, the “good enough” approach to using EDR tools for cloud security is becoming obsolete. Attacker innovations have far outpaced cloud EDR capabilities, representing a watershed moment where organizations must move to more advanced cloud detection and response (CDR) solutions.
CDR capabilities within the Cloud Application Protection Platform (CNAPP) provide advanced detection and response across a range of cloud technologies, such as containers, Kubernetes, serverless compute, cloud registries and paths, and Linux and Windows servers. To meet Standard 555, security teams can't waste time switching between user interfaces (UIs) and tabs. CNAPP provides a unified core approach that provides comprehensive coverage beyond what traditional EDR solutions can provide.
Real CDR provides:
Continuous monitoring with real-time detection of known and unknown threats.
Automated real-time correlation of events, vulnerabilities and identities to provide deep cloud native context.
Manual and automated countermeasures to eliminate threats.
This approach gives security and platform teams immediate access to insights and context, enabling them to quickly respond to threats and incidents without fragmenting workflows across environments. By adopting a CNAPP strategy, organizations can streamline their cloud security operations and enhance efficiency and effectiveness in protecting their cloud environments.
Empower teams with proactive cloud security
With the rapid pace of digital transformation and the increasing sophistication of cyber threats, the need for robust and adaptable cloud security solutions is greater than ever. CDR within CNAPP not only meets the challenges presented by cloud environments, but also supports organizational growth and innovation by enabling secure cloud adoption.
CNAPP accreditation becomes not just a necessity but a strategic advantage. It enables teams to proactively detect and respond to threats, optimize workflow, and maintain a strong security posture in an ever-changing cloud landscape. By shifting from EDR to purpose-built cloud security solutions, organizations can confidently embrace the benefits of the cloud while protecting the security and integrity of their data and applications.
Written by Ryan Davis, Senior Director of Product Marketing at Sysdig
About the author
Ryan Davis is Senior Director of Product Marketing at Sysdig. He leads the go-to-market strategy for core cloud security initiatives and use cases. Previously, Ryan led cloud product marketing at ExtraHop.
