Cloud computing is growing at a rapid rate. With that growth and the need for new tools to protect cloud-based data and communication, businesses are taking appropriate measures to secure data on cloud security models. The CIEM system uses automated entitlement management to implement the least privilege rule across users and applications in the cloud.
Read on to know more about the CIEM tools and how you can use them in your organization.
What are CIEM Tools?
CIEM is a next-generation cloud security model that manages cloud-native security challenges with entitlement management technology. Entitlement management is a software security model which grants, enforces, upgrades, or downgrades user privileges for applications and resources shared over the cloud.
These tools remediate cloud access risk and deploy the least privilege rule to ensure data security on a multi-cloud network. Gartner provided CIEM to communicate a category of cloud security tools and technologies that primarily focus on identity and access management.
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Why Do We Need CIEM Tools?
As organizations grow, they leverage public cloud providers like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform to store critical information and streamline operations.
According to reports, the global cloud computing market size is valued at $274.79 billion in 2020 and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 19.1 percent from 2021 to 2028.
Cloud data management is not an easy task. Traditional Identity Access Management (IAM) solutions and practices can only protect and control on-premises applications and resources.
As cloud networks are highly dynamic and fast-growing, IAM tools are not easily scalable to manage this vast data over the internet. Hence, cloud IAM poses operational, security, and compliance challenges for multinational organizations.
This is where CIEM tools and solutions come into the picture. They can identify the security loopholes in the system and establish the least privilege rule across single or multi-cloud environments.
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7 Different Uses of CIEM For Your Organization
Here are seven uses of CIEM tools for your company if you are working in a multi-cloud environment.
Apply Least Privilege Rule with Entitlement Policies
The first step towards ensuring data security on a cloud-based network is to apply the least privilege rule. The principle of least privilege (POLP) means allowing the lowest level of rights to perform specific tasks on the cloud network.
It reduces the chances of cyberattacks or malware infection in a cloud-based database.
Entitlement Visibility
CIEM tools use a centralized dashboard to keep an eye on user behavior on the cloud network. Each user is assigned specific entitlements or privileges to perform some tasks.
CIEM tools quickly identify and remediate excessive cloud permissions for specific applications and processes with entitlement visibility. It helps mitigate security risks involved in sharing critical information over the cloud.
Right to Add or Remove User Privileges
Once you deploy a CIEM security solution, IT admins or superusers have maximum rights to add, remove, modify other user entitlements in the network. They can also quickly implement the least privilege rule for new users without disrupting productivity.
They can continuously monitor access key usage with an accurate inventory of all existing entitlements in the cloud network.
Comply with Security and Government Regulations
A good CIEM solution can automatically and consistently apply for permissions across the cloud-based network in compliance with security protocols and government regulations in the state.
CIEM tools can easily integrate with your existing Identity Governance and Administration (IGA) platform. IGA is a security policy framework that efficiently helps companies avoid identity-related access risks within cloud-based networks.
It simplifies and centralizes the administration and management of cloud resources with granular level entitlements.
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Automatic Risk Assessment
CIEM tools help to identify loopholes in cloud security quickly. Hence, you can proactively defend yourself from internal and external data security threats.
It can identify suspicious activities, human errors, or any deviations from enterprise policy. Once it analyzes the cloud environment for discrepancies, it can automatically clean up or fix the security issues.
Auditing Tools
Cloud security management tools like CIEM have a real-time view of changes to sensitive resources. By continuously monitoring traffic in the network, it can keep track of changes in cloud infrastructure.
It can conduct regular audits of users, resources, and applications shared across the internet and generate audit reports.
Report Generation
Identify Access Management (IAM) tools are used to provide and manage access rights to users for using a company’s resources. CIEM integrates these on-premises security tools and generates reports about users and applications.
These include compliance reports, executive summary reports, and user entitlement reports. While monitoring and governing IT admins or privileged users, CIEM tools can also help to identify and remove dormant or unused entitlements.
It ensures the data is secured from unwanted threats cyber attacks from the internet.
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