Think about your cloud atmosphere as a business aircraft. Earlier than flight, planes endure strict upkeep schedules, exams, and preflight checks to be in compliance with security rules. These actions are just like your posture-based safety measures, guaranteeing your cloud atmosphere is well-configured, free from recognized vulnerabilities, and adhering to finest practices.
However aviation security doesn’t cease on the tarmac — pilots don’t simply cross their fingers and hope the aircraft stays protected on its solution to a vacation spot. There are programs in place that monitor climate circumstances, air site visitors from different planes, flight paths, and aircraft efficiency. These can be your runtime controls appearing as your real-time eyes within the sky for something that may go fallacious. Equally, runtime safety on your cloud property appears to be like for threats which have slipped by the cracks, enabling responders to take motion.
Conventional approaches, like posture-based safety, have lengthy been the cornerstone of cloud safety, and are a typical first step in establishing a powerful cloud safety technique. Nonetheless, the dynamic nature of cloud environments, that are at all times quickly scaling and rising in complexity, means a prevention-only strategy can’t assure security. Your groups want a solution to mitigate assaults when attackers exploit gaps.
The challenges of posture-based safety
Posture-based safety offers useful visibility into the various misconfigurations and vulnerabilities that may exist inside your atmosphere. That being mentioned, it’s not a straightforward button to unravel your whole issues. It requires alignment throughout a number of groups (DevOps, safety, product) and the institution of mature shift-left guardrails. These guardrails, whereas vital, can introduce vital complexity and infrequently decelerate improvement cycles as groups adapt. Implementing such guardrails calls for considerate coordination, a transparent understanding of shared obligations, and most significantly, buy-in throughout the board.
Probably the most difficult features of constructing a profitable safety program is aligning and enabling groups, which frequently have competing priorities. Safety isn’t only a technical problem, it’s a cultural one. It takes robust management assist, time invested in coaching, and an ongoing effort to combine safety into present processes with out overwhelming builders. Convincing groups to take possession of latest safety practices, particularly when it means adjusting how they work or including steps earlier than code may be deployed, is a fragile stability.
Options like Sysdig may also help ease this burden by offering developer-friendly, prioritized remediation steerage and integrating seamlessly into the instruments and workflows groups are already utilizing. This sort of assist doesn’t simply scale back friction; it helps safety change into a collaborative effort relatively than a bottleneck.
The dangers of relying solely on posture administration
Relying solely on posture administration, regardless of how robust, leaves you uncovered to the chance of a single misconfiguration or vulnerability. A misconfigured entry management, improperly scoped API key, or unsecured shared credential can change into the weak hyperlink in an in any other case safe system. Usually, attackers solely have to determine one flaw to achieve a foothold and transfer laterally throughout the atmosphere, bypassing in any other case strong defenses.
Gaps that posture-based safety can’t handle
Even for organizations that obtain near-perfect safety posture, this strategy nonetheless has its limitations. Sure sorts of assaults can bypass these proactive measures, even when all misconfigurations and recognized vulnerabilities are addressed. The next threats can evade conventional posture-based safety checks and create unseen gaps in your atmosphere:
- Zero-day vulnerabilities: Exploits concentrating on unknown flaws that posture-based programs can’t detect (Log4Shell, IngressNightmare, Leaky Vessels).
- Provide chain assaults: Dangers from third-party code or dependencies that posture administration may miss. With the vast majority of code being open supply, provide chain assaults pose a major threat (tj-actions/changed-files).
- Unpatchable vulnerabilities: Flaws that may’t be patched as a result of third-party or legacy code. In response to Vulncheck’s 2024 exploit report, these account for twenty-four% of all exploited vulnerabilities.
- Compromised identities and insider threats: Dangers from credential theft or malicious insiders. With identification being the brand new perimeter within the cloud, these threats characterize practically half of the preliminary entry vectors in cloud-based assaults.
When these threats are exploited, the implications may be extreme, and posture-based safety typically isn’t sufficient to cease them. Zero-day vulnerabilities like Log4Shell and Leaky Vessels bypassed posture checks solely, and allowed attackers to silently infiltrate programs earlier than defenses even know what to search for. Provide chain assaults can compromise whole pipelines, spreading threat by trusted code. Unpatchable vulnerabilities can’t be resolved by conventional means, leaving persistent cracks in your defenses. In the meantime, compromised identities and insider threats can slip previous posture controls by abusing official credentials. In all of those circumstances, visibility alone isn’t sufficient. Organizations want runtime safety and real-time detection to really defend towards these evolving dangers.
The benefits of runtime safety
Runtime safety is a dynamic, real-time strategy that detects and mitigates threats as they happen as a substitute of relying solely on stopping them earlier than they occur. This strategy to safety offers granular visibility into the actions being carried out on the system, relatively than simply reporting on how they’re configured. When posture-based safety misses one thing, runtime safety can step in because the final line of protection to guard the system throughout lively assaults, assuaging the worry of knowledge breaches and unauthorized entry.
For organizations nonetheless maturing of their cloud safety journey, runtime safety is commonly the best first step in securing their atmosphere. In contrast to different components of a cloud safety platform, runtime safety doesn’t generate extra work — it actively works to guard your atmosphere. It’s simple for safety groups to implement and handle immediately, as a result of it doesn’t depend on builders or engineering groups for remediation. This permits runtime safety to supply fast, complete safety whereas different processes, like implementing shift-left practices and addressing vulnerability backlogs, are nonetheless being developed. Runtime safety establishes a powerful safety basis from the very begin.
Advantages for mature safety postures
Organizations with a extra mature safety posture also can profit considerably from including runtime safety. It helps handle gaps in present defenses which may bypass posture-based checks, similar to zero-day vulnerabilities, compromised identities, or provide chain assaults, whereas offering a baseline of safety as new vulnerabilities and misconfigurations are remediated. Runtime safety gives full visibility into assaults, enabling organizations to evaluate the scope, decide if the assault is ongoing, and take corrective actions to forestall future incidents.
Combining posture-based and runtime safety
A complete cloud safety technique combines each posture-based and runtime safety to create a multi-layered protection. Posture-based safety builds a powerful basis by guaranteeing correct configurations, mitigating recognized vulnerabilities, and adhering to finest practices. Runtime safety enhances this by serving as a security web, shortly containing any threats that slip by the cracks to reduce the potential impression of an assault. This mixed strategy not solely offers fast, complete safety but in addition permits your safety processes to evolve alongside rising threats, guaranteeing your cloud atmosphere stays safe.
Sysdig: Main the way in which in runtime safety
Sysdig is main the way in which in runtime safety with a complete CNAPP platform powered by superior, real-time runtime safety. Sysdig is constructed on the open supply basis of Falco, which allows over 60% of Fortune 500 corporations worldwide to safe their cloud environments. Uncover how Sysdig can improve the safety of your cloud atmosphere — request a customized demo at present to discover how our options align along with your particular wants.
