8 Tips for Monitoring Cloud Security

If your company struggles with visibility into cloud security metrics, it's not alone. Cloud security is fundamentally different from on-prem security and requires different practices as companies move applications, services, and data to this new environment. 

You can no longer view security as a "fence around everything," says Chris Ford, vice president of product management at Threat Stack. "In this new world of highly changing infrastructure, you need visibility into all the different areas of infrastructure where you can detect risk and begin to put security posture in place. "This all depends on your ability to observe behaviors."

When it comes to today's cloud security practices, companies are in "reactive mode," says Balaji Parimi, CEO of CloudKnox. They're focused on protecting their cloud environments by using tools that provide visibility into anomalous activity and then responding to it, he explains.

"While there is some merit to these 'reactive' tools, companies must prioritize pre-emptive measures in order to prevent catastrophic scenarios," Parimi says. He advises they evaluate tools that will help prevent, or at least minimize, risks linked to poorly provisioned identities.

Watching for overprovisioned or incorrectly provisioned identities is one of the ways companies can improve security monitoring in the cloud. Here, experts share their best practices for how to approach cloud security monitoring and what to watch for in their cloud environments.

Feel free to share your own in the comments.