CIEM: What It is, How to Use It, and What to Look for
As per recent data, 2021 data breaches have exceeded data breaches of 2020. Cloud security experts mention 2020 had 1108 breaches, while 2021 had 1291 breaches, a 17% increase compared to 2020.
Several cloud security solutions can prevent data breach incidents and secure cloud platforms. Here is some vital information on CIEM security solutions.
What is CIEM?
Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM) solutions manage identity and access privileges in the cloud and multi-cloud environments. It applies the Principle of Least Privilege to cloud services and infrastructure that helps organizations prevent malicious attacks, data breaches, and other risks posed by excessive cloud permissions.
The CIEM tools have a knowledge engine that gathers information about the application’s usage of cloud resources at regular intervals. CIEM tools send the collected data to SIEM, integrating it with other data like source code repositories, application performance management tools, and Syslog servers. The collected data is stored in a searchable database used for reporting purposes.
The information collection and storage happens behind the scenes, and the user is unaware of the background processes. The security tools also monitor cloud infrastructure and update it when a new business unit is added or an existing business unit is updated.
The CIEM maintains an organizational repository that stores information about all business units in one place and reflects changes made to any business units in the cloud.
Now that you know what CIEM is, let’s learn how to use it.
How to Use CIEM?
CIEM is a comprehensive security solution that can effectively work in multi-cloud environments. Here are some tips for using CIEM in your cloud infrastructure.
Manage Identities
Cloud security experts mention identities are the new security boundaries of the cloud environment. The highest cloud risks emanate from mismanaged identities and not the networks.
CIEM solutions identify and classify all identities across cloud platforms, including human and non-human identities. The CIEM tools strengthen the Identity and Access Management on cloud platforms through real-time monitoring of the identities and relationships with other cloud elements.
Implement Effective Permissions
To secure the cloud platform, you should know the permissions entitled to each identity operating through your cloud account. Permissions define the access rights of the identities.
Due to the complex nature of cloud infrastructure, it can be a daunting task for security teams to implement effective permissions to each identity to fulfill assigned tasks or duties.
The Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management solution takes a holistic approach to the effective and end-to-end permissions of the identities in the cloud. It also evaluates policies and access controls directly attached to the identity. The security solution also maps the permissions to identities to analyze what identities can do with given permissions.
To appropriately manage risks and protect your cloud, the security solution gives you complete accessibility of all identities and their permissions. The CIEM solution can help know the identity and permissions in a multi-cloud environment and allow security teams to implement the least access privilege model.
Now that you know how to use CIEM solutions, let’s learn what makes a particular CIEM solution best for your cloud infrastructure.
What to Look for in CIEM Solution?
Here are some things you need to look for in the CIEM solution.
Visibility and Control
A key factor in cloud security is visibility and control of all identities and permissions. The cloud security solutions give you complete visibility of all existing identities in a multi-cloud user environment and make sure none of the identities have excessive permissions that hackers or disgruntled employees can exploit.
The security solution should view which identity has access to critical data regardless of where the identity belongs. The security tools should offer activity monitoring that allows you to discover changes in configuration and security across your cloud ecosystem.
Secure User Management
The cloud security tools enable the secure management of users/identities. They help prevent users’ access to management interfaces and procedures to ensure applications, data, and resources are not compromised.
The security tools implement security policies and protocols to separate users and forbid any malicious user affecting services and data.
Identity and Authentication
Your cloud security solution should classify identities depending on their job roles. The security tools should enforce two-factor authentication to ensure hackers cannot access cloud user accounts with compromised or stolen passwords.
This also ensures that authentication is done through secure channels like HTTPS to avoid interception.
Due to the increasing cloud threats, CIEM has become a necessity for businesses that have migrated their operations to cloud environments.
