In cloud computing environments, the term “runtime” often evokes thoughts of traditional workloads—applications running on virtual machines or servers. But modern applications don’t run the same as they did a decade ago.
With the cloud, applications are highly distributed, spanning services like virtual private clouds (VPCs), Amazon S3 buckets, Relational Database Service (RDS) instances, and even third-party systems like identity management services. This complexity is why the concept of runtime insights is so important in cloud security.
When I talk about cloud security with runtime insights, I’m not just talking about tracking what’s happening inside a container or application. I’m talking about real-time insights that span the entire cloud ecosystem, connecting every action, identity, event, and change that touches an organization’s workloads.
This is how cloud-native applications work in the real world—constantly communicating, updating, and evolving. This is where the value of real-time operational insights in cloud security comes in. Every operational action captured in real time is a potential security event, and these insights are what give security teams the upper hand in detecting and responding to threats. Like bioluminescence in nature, real-time operational insights in cloud security shine a light on what’s happening in the dark, making hidden threats visible and actionable.
Why Real-Time Runtime Insights Matter
The focus on real-time to get runtime insights accommodates the urgent nature of cloud environments where security attacks are happening faster than ever before. The cloud doesn’t offer the luxury of time previously available in on-premises environments, when teams had minutes or even hours to detect and respond to threats.
In the cloud, everything is accelerated. Threats need to be detected in seconds, and remediation needs to happen in minutes — not hours or days.
What about preventive controls versus investigative controls? Cloud security isn’t just about stopping threats before they happen; it’s about understanding that attacks that bypass preventive controls are inevitable.
Preventive controls are essential—they’re like a helmet that protects you when you’re skiing down the slopes of cybersecurity. You wouldn’t ski down the slopes without them, just as you wouldn’t deploy an app without basic security hygiene. But just as a helmet won’t stop you from falling, preventive controls won’t stop all threats.
You have to assume failure, and assume that at some point the attack will bypass the prevention controls. This is where detection capabilities with real-time insights come in. If you can’t detect an attack or bug the moment it happens, you’ve already lost.
Preventive controls provide a sense of security, but they are inherently backward-looking. They focus on preventing what could happen, not what is happening now. With cloud attacks happening in seconds, the only way to stay ahead of the curve and know where to focus security investigations is to look at real-time runtime insights.
Prioritize active risks
Runtime insights enable security teams to focus on the most pressing threats. By segmenting risk based on the resources currently exposed—whether across a single node or a sprawling cloud environment—security teams can prioritize active threats with confidence.
With this live data continuously fed into analysts’ investigation workflow, they can easily assess the processes running on affected nodes and work from a detailed, real-time view of risks across the company’s cloud ecosystem.
This dynamic perspective cuts through the noise that often pervades security operations, so teams can focus their time and attention on what really matters. In cybersecurity, where timing is everything, runtime insights provide a streamlined approach to protecting cloud environments, helping teams make fast, informed decisions during investigations.
Real-Time Insights in Action: Container Security
One area where real-time runtime insights shine is in container security. Containers are, by nature, transient and constantly changing. Traditional security tools that focus on static analysis or scanning images before deployment simply can’t keep up with the dynamic nature of containers. Real-time runtime insights allow security teams to continuously monitor container activity to catch anomalies and threats as they happen.
For example, if an attacker gains access to a container and begins executing commands, the operating system will detect these actions immediately in real time. Whether it’s an unauthorized process appearing in a container or a configuration change opening a vulnerability, real-time runtime insights enable security teams to prioritize their efforts and act quickly.
In a world where cloud attacks are becoming increasingly automated and rapid, real-time detection is no longer a luxury; it’s a necessity. Being able to see what’s happening in the cloud at any given moment—and prioritize based on a subset of physical risks occurring at runtime—can quiet the alarm noise in their cloud environments and significantly reduce risk factors.
In cloud environments, where threats can escalate in seconds, real-time runtime insights provide the flexibility organizations need to keep up with threats and protect their cloud investments.
By Alex Lawrence, Field Information Security Manager, Sysdig
About the author
Alex Lawrence is the Field CISO at Sysdig. He has a long history working in the data center as well as in the DevOps world. Alex has spent most of his time working in the open source world in areas such as identity, authentication, user management, and security. Alex has also studied bioluminescence and fungi in detail, giving his presentation “Everything I know about cybersecurity I learned from fungi” at CloudNativeSecurityCon 2024.
