Best Cloud Workload Protection Platforms
Cloud workload protection platforms help protect servers and cloud infrastructure and virtual machines (VMs) from web-based threats.
To qualify for inclusion in the Cloud Workload Protection Platforms category, a product must:
Best Cloud Workload Protection Platforms At A Glance
G2 takes pride in showing unbiased reviews on user satisfaction in our ratings and reports. We do not allow paid placements in any of our ratings, rankings, or reports. Learn about our scoring methodologies.
- Overview
- Pros and Cons
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
Wiz transforms cloud security for customers – including more than 50% of the Fortune 100 – by enabling a new operating model. With Wiz, organizations can democratize security across the developme
- CISO
- Security Engineer
- Financial Services
- Computer Software
- 55% Enterprise
- 38% Mid-Market
17,423 Twitter followers
- Overview
- Pros and Cons
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
Sysdig Secure is our CNAPP platform that more than 700 enterprise customers use to address CNAPP, VM, CSPM, CIEM, container security and more - at enterprise scale. Our platform spans prevention, dete
- Security Engineer
- Financial Services
- Information Technology and Services
- 46% Enterprise
- 40% Mid-Market
10,130 Twitter followers
- Overview
- Pros and Cons
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
The Orca Cloud Security Platform identifies, prioritizes, and remediates risks and compliance issues in workloads, configurations, and identities across your cloud estate spanning AWS, Azure, Google C
- Security Engineer
- Senior Security Engineer
- Computer Software
- Information Technology and Services
- 51% Mid-Market
- 37% Enterprise
4,854 Twitter followers
- Overview
- Pros and Cons
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
CloudGuard Cloud Network Security, part of the CloudGuard Cloud Native Security platform (https://www.g2.com/products/cloudguard-cnapp/reviews) , provides advanced threat prevention and automated clou
- Network Engineer
- Financial Services
- Information Technology and Services
- 51% Enterprise
- 28% Mid-Market
71,095 Twitter followers
- Overview
- Pros and Cons
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
CloudGuard CNAPP provides you with more context to drive actionable security and smarter prevention, from code-to-cloud, across the application lifecycle. CloudGuard’s prevention-first approach prote
- Security Engineer
- Financial Services
- Information Technology and Services
- 52% Enterprise
- 34% Mid-Market
71,095 Twitter followers
- Overview
- Pros and Cons
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
Microsoft Defender for Cloud is a cloud native application protection platform for multicloud and hybrid environments with comprehensive security across the full lifecycle, from development to runtime
- Saas Consultant
- Software Engineer
- Information Technology and Services
- Computer Software
- 38% Mid-Market
- 34% Enterprise
14,002,134 Twitter followers
- Overview
- Pros and Cons
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
VMware AppDefense is a data center endpoint security product that protects applications running in virtualized environments. Rather than chasing after threats, AppDefense understands an application's
- Information Technology and Services
- 45% Mid-Market
- 29% Small-Business
60,146 Twitter followers
- Overview
- Pros and Cons
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
Lacework FortiCNAPP is an AI-powered Cloud-Native Application Protection Platform that delivers unified security across your multi-cloud and hybrid environments. Built to protect the entire applicatio
- Security Engineer
- Senior Security Engineer
- Information Technology and Services
- Computer Software
- 62% Mid-Market
- 26% Enterprise
151,589 Twitter followers
- Overview
- Pros and Cons
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security stop breaches with the most complete agent and agentless cloud-native application protection platform (CNAPP), with the most comprehensive cloud detection and respons
- Information Technology and Services
- Computer & Network Security
- 45% Enterprise
- 41% Mid-Market
107,236 Twitter followers
- Overview
- Pros and Cons
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
Singularity Cloud Security is SentinelOne’s comprehensive, cloud-native application protection platform (CNAPP). It combines the best of agentless insights with AI-powered threat protection, to secure
- Information Technology and Services
- Financial Services
- 60% Mid-Market
- 31% Enterprise
55,528 Twitter followers
- Overview
- Pros and Cons
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
In today's complex digital landscape, securing your cloud environment is paramount. The management and security of your hybrid and multi-cloud setup pose increasing challenges. Trend's Cloud Security
- Cyber Security Associate
- Cyber Security Engineer
- Computer & Network Security
- Information Technology and Services
- 40% Mid-Market
- 33% Enterprise
112,849 Twitter followers
- Overview
- Pros and Cons
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
APC's next-generation Connected Smart-UPS * is a time-saving, resource-saving innovation, making it easier to deploy, maintain, and monitor your power infrastructure - so you can focus on your busines
- 47% Mid-Market
- 35% Small-Business
14,212 Twitter followers
- Overview
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
Cloud Platform Security Overview allows users to deploy on an infrastructure protected by top experts in information, application, and network security.
- Android Software Engineer
- Computer Software
- Information Technology and Services
- 59% Mid-Market
- 49% Small-Business
32,753,487 Twitter followers
- Overview
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
Armor is a global cloud security company. We make cybersecurity and compliance simple, achievable, and manageable for managed service providers (MSPs) and their customers across endpoint, network, ser
- 83% Small-Business
- 17% Mid-Market
9,860 Twitter followers
- Overview
- Pros and Cons
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
InsightVM is Rapid7’s vulnerability risk management offering that advances security through cross-department clarity, a deeper understanding of risk, and measurable progress. By informing and aligning
- Information Technology and Services
- Computer & Network Security
- 52% Enterprise
- 31% Mid-Market
122,458 Twitter followers
- Overview
- Pros and Cons
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
AWS Control Tower automates the set-up of a baseline environment, or landing zone, that is a secure, well-architected multi-account AWS environment. The configuration of the landing zone is based on b
- 43% Enterprise
- 43% Mid-Market
2,229,411 Twitter followers
- Overview
- Pros and Cons
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
ARMO Platform is the only runtime-driven, open-source first, cloud security platform. It is the only security platform that continuously minimizes cloud attack surface based on runtime insights, while
- Computer Software
- Information Technology and Services
- 58% Small-Business
- 37% Mid-Market
3,144 Twitter followers
- Overview
- Pros and Cons
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks, the next version of Prisma Cloud, understands a unified security approach is essential for effectively addressing AppSec, CloudSec, and SecOps. Connecting cloud sec
- Information Technology and Services
- Computer & Network Security
- 40% Enterprise
- 32% Small-Business
127,032 Twitter followers
- Overview
- Pros and Cons
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
AlgoSec, a global cybersecurity leader, empowers organizations to secure application connectivity and cloud-native applications throughout their multi-cloud and hybrid network. Trusted by more tha
- Security Engineer
- Computer & Network Security
- Information Technology and Services
- 47% Enterprise
- 31% Mid-Market
2,452 Twitter followers
- Overview
- Pros and Cons
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
Qualys VMDR is an all-in-one risk-based vulnerability management solution that quantifies cyber risk. It gives organizations unprecedented insights into their risk posture and provides actionable step
- Security Engineer
- Information Technology and Services
- Computer & Network Security
- 51% Enterprise
- 28% Mid-Market
34,107 Twitter followers
- Overview
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
Tufin simplifies the management of some of the largest, most complex networks in the world, that consist of thousands of firewall and network devices and emerging hybrid cloud infrastructures. Enterpr
- Computer & Network Security
- Banking
- 68% Enterprise
- 19% Mid-Market
8,138 Twitter followers
- Overview
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
Runecast is an enterprise CNAPP platform which saves your Security and Operations teams time and resources by enabling a proactive approach to ITOM, CSPM, and compliance. It helps you proactively reme
- 45% Enterprise
- 25% Mid-Market
1,149 Twitter followers
- Overview
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
Automate security for your public cloud workloads and containers, and scan Amazon S3 buckets for malware with cloud-native protection that integrates with DevOps and CI/CD pipelines
- 58% Mid-Market
- 25% Small-Business
60,146 Twitter followers
- Overview
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
Distributed Cloud AIP, formerly known as Threat Stack, is the leader in cloud security and compliance for application infrastructures, helping companies securely leverage the business benefits of the
- Computer Software
- Information Technology and Services
- 70% Mid-Market
- 20% Small-Business
1,401 Twitter followers
- Overview
- Pros and Cons
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
ExtraHop is the cybersecurity partner enterprises trust to reveal cyber risk and build business resilience. The ExtraHop RevealX platform for network detection and response and network performance man
- Hospital & Health Care
- Transportation/Trucking/Railroad
- 70% Enterprise
- 25% Mid-Market
10,921 Twitter followers
- Overview
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
Turbot provides enterprise guardrails for cloud infrastructure. Turbot is designed to allow enterprises to achieve agility, ensure control, and accelerate best practices through continuous adherence o
- Information Technology and Services
- 62% Enterprise
- 31% Mid-Market
421 Twitter followers
- Overview
- Pros and Cons
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
AccuKnox Zero Trust CNAPP cloud security protects public and private clouds, Kubernetes and VMs. AccuKnox is a AI-powered Zero Trust Cloud Native Security Platform that helps organizations comply with
- 46% Enterprise
- 31% Mid-Market
324 Twitter followers
- Overview
- Pros and Cons
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
Aqua Security sees and stops attacks across the entire cloud native application lifecycle in a single, integrated platform. From software supply chain security for developers to cloud security and run
- Computer Software
- Financial Services
- 56% Enterprise
- 39% Mid-Market
7,603 Twitter followers
- Overview
- Pros and Cons
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
Calico Cloud is a fully-managed SaaS platform that provides unified network security and observability to prevent, detect and mitigate security breaches in Kubernetes clusters. It is built on Calico O
- Information Technology and Services
- Financial Services
- 42% Enterprise
- 35% Mid-Market
1,958 Twitter followers
- Overview
- Pros and Cons
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
Cloudaware is a cloud management platform with such modules as CMDB, Change Management, Cost Management, Compliance Engine, Vulnerability Scanning, Intrusion Detection, Patching, Log Management, Monit
- 42% Small-Business
- 33% Enterprise
501 Twitter followers
- Overview
- Pros and Cons
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
Cloud Security Command Center helps security teams gather data, identify threats, and act on them before they result in business damage or loss. It offers deep insight into application and data risk s
- 50% Small-Business
- 17% Enterprise
32,753,487 Twitter followers
- Overview
- Pros and Cons
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
Caveonix is a truly innovative digital risk-management platform designed to govern an enterprise's assets within hybrid and multi-cloud environments. We're powering enterprises to automate and secure
- 36% Mid-Market
- 36% Small-Business
73 Twitter followers
- Overview
- Pros and Cons
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
- Information Technology and Services
- 52% Mid-Market
- 33% Enterprise
36,785 Twitter followers
- Overview
- Pros and Cons
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
Illumio Zero Trust Segmentation is the first platform for breach containment. Visualize all communication between workloads and devices, set granular segmentation policies to control communications,
- Computer & Network Security
- 50% Mid-Market
- 33% Enterprise
3,409 Twitter followers
- Overview
- Pros and Cons
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
CloudWize is a no-code Cloud Security Center of Excellence that gives you maximum cloud compliance & security. Get 360° Protection from Architecture Design to Runtime. CludWize enforces cloud reg
- 50% Small-Business
- 33% Mid-Market
92 Twitter followers
- Overview
- Pros and Cons
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
Tenable Cloud Security (formerly Ermetic) reveals and prioritizes security gaps in AWS, Azure and GCP and enables organizations to remediate them immediately. The Tenable Cloud Security cloud native a
- Computer Software
- Financial Services
- 50% Mid-Market
- 43% Enterprise
86,913 Twitter followers
- Overview
- Pros and Cons
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
Cloudanix is a Ycombinator-backed security platform for your code, cloud, identities, and workloads. Cloudanix provides solutions for your multi-environments which may include multi-clouds, multi-acco
- 60% Mid-Market
- 40% Small-Business
94 Twitter followers
- Overview
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
Kaspersky Hybrid Cloud Security has been engineered to protect applications and data on your physical, virtual and cloud workloads, ensuring business sustainability and accelerating compliance across
- 67% Small-Business
- 33% Enterprise
1,308 Twitter followers
- Overview
- Pros and Cons
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
Cisco Secure Workload stops threats from spreading and protects applications with zero trust microsegmentation. From a single pane of glass, it protects on-prem application workloads and those in priv
- 80% Small-Business
- 20% Enterprise
729,024 Twitter followers
- Overview
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
Rezilion's software attack surface management platform automatically secures the software you deliver to customers, giving teams time back to build. Rezilion works across your stack, helping you to k
- 45% Mid-Market
- 36% Enterprise
206 Twitter followers
- Overview
- Pros and Cons
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
Sonrai Security is a leading public cloud identity and access management solutions provider. With a mission to empower enterprises of all sizes to innovate securely and confidently, Sonrai Security de
- 39% Enterprise
- 33% Mid-Market
- Overview
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
BMC Helix Cloud Security automates cloud configuration security checks and remediation - no coding required! - so that the IaaS and PaaS services your stakeholders use are configured securely, consist
- 50% Small-Business
- 40% Mid-Market
49,466 Twitter followers
- Overview
- Pros and Cons
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
For enterprises who need to protect their infrastructure, CyberArk Conjur software provides proactive security with comprehensive authorization and audit for all IT applications, clouds, and services.
- Information Technology and Services
- 59% Enterprise
- 29% Mid-Market
17,421 Twitter followers
- Overview
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
Morphisec fortifies your organization by diminishing the blast radius of attacks, to preemptively reduce the organization’s exposure to cyber risk, pro-actively prevent advanced threats, and ensure op
- Information Technology and Services
- 75% Mid-Market
- 17% Enterprise
2,223 Twitter followers
- Overview
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
The leading enterprise-grade cloud storage management solution, NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP delivers secure, proven storage management services and supports up to a capacity of 368TB. Software service
- Information Technology and Services
- Computer & Network Security
- 41% Enterprise
- 32% Small-Business
119,687 Twitter followers
- Overview
- Pros and Cons
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
- Information Technology and Services
- 38% Mid-Market
- 34% Enterprise
60,146 Twitter followers
- Overview
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
Secure Cloud Interconnect helps you connect to our global ecosystem of leading Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) from your Verizon Private IP Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS)-based VPN network—simply
- 50% Enterprise
- 50% Small-Business
6 Twitter followers
- Overview
- Pros and Cons
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
Virsec provides Zero Trust cybersecurity for legacy and modern workloads with the Virsec Security Platform (VSP). Using a default-deny, allow-on-trust security compensating control, VSP protects appli
- 100% Mid-Market
- 50% Enterprise
- Overview
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
ADEPT Egress Control blocks breaches and protects your cloud workloads. Our product essentially zero-trusts your software, protecting against supply chain threats, command and control, and data leaks
- 100% Enterprise
- Overview
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
Enterprise Threat Protector (ETP) enables security teams to proactively identify, block, and mitigate targeted threats such as malware, ransomware, phishing, and data exfiltration that exploit the Dom
- 50% Mid-Market
- 50% Small-Business
118,545 Twitter followers
- Overview
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
Atomic Enterprise OSSEC is the commercially enhanced version of the OSSEC Intrusion Detection System brought to you by the sponsors of the OSSEC project. OSSEC is the world’s most popular open source
- 100% Mid-Market
720 Twitter followers
- Overview
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
AtomicWP Workload Security helps to secure workloads in a variety of environments while enhancing security. Meets virtually all cloud workload protection and compliance requirements in a single lightw
- 100% Enterprise
720 Twitter followers
- Overview
- Pros and Cons
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
CheckRed is a complete cloud security platform (SSPM/CNAPP/CSPM/CIEM/CWPP/Compliance) covering all critical SaaS apps and cloud providers – all in a single, user-friendly, and affordable solution.
- 75% Mid-Market
- 25% Small-Business
- Overview
- Pros and Cons
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
Cimcor is the leading provider of System Integrity Assurance with our award-winning CimTrak Integrity Suite that protects a wide range of physical, network, cloud, and virtual IT assets in real time.
- 48% Enterprise
- 35% Mid-Market
2,226 Twitter followers
- Overview
- Pros and Cons
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
Xshield stops the lateral spread of malware & ransomware by putting a micro-perimeter around every network asset. With Xshield, you can visualize a map of all your network assets, applications, an
- 50% Small-Business
- 50% Mid-Market
417 Twitter followers
- Overview
- Pros and Cons
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
Secure your workloads, users and critical assets from zero-day and advanced persistent threats in minutes
- 50% Small-Business
- 50% Mid-Market
417 Twitter followers
- Overview
- Pros and Cons
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
CloudPassage is a security and compliance automation platform designed to provide instant visibility and continuous protection for servers in any combination of data centers, private clouds and public
- 67% Enterprise
- 33% Small-Business
2,248 Twitter followers
- Overview
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
FirstWave Cloud is a fully virtualised solution allowing telcos to deliver advanced cloud security solutions.
- 50% Enterprise
- 50% Small-Business
- Overview
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
Guardicore is a data center and cloud security company that protects your organization’s core assets using flexible, quickly deployed, and easy to understand micro-segmentation controls.
- 100% Mid-Market
118,545 Twitter followers
- Overview
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
CloudControl helps you protect your virtual infrastructure with authentication, authorization and auditing. Better visibility and control simplify compliance and accelerate further virtualization
- 100% Mid-Market
1,601 Twitter followers
- Overview
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
The Secure Gateway Service provides a quick, easy, and secure solution to connect anything to anything. The solution provides a persistent connection between on-premises or third party cloud environme
- 100% Enterprise
710,022 Twitter followers
- Overview
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
IBM Security zSecure Admin automates and simplifies IBM Resource Access Control Facility (RACF) security and compliance administration tasks and enhances RACF delegation capabilities and identity gove
- 100% Mid-Market
710,022 Twitter followers
- Overview
- Pros and Cons
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
Cloud Security Plus combats security concerns and protects your cloud. It gives complete visibility into both your AWS and Azure cloud infrastructures.
- 100% Mid-Market
7,682 Twitter followers
- Overview
- Pros and Cons
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
Saviynt offers complete visibility and control over both human and machine identities, empowering organizations to enhance their security measures, streamline business processes, and equip every indiv
- 93% Enterprise
- 7% Mid-Market
1,189 Twitter followers
- Overview
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
Styra are the creators and maintainers of Open Policy Agent and leaders in cloud-native authorization. Our mission at Styra is to provide unified authorization and policy across the cloud-native stack
- 67% Enterprise
- 33% Small-Business
3,432 Twitter followers
- Overview
- Pros and Cons
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
Uptycs unified CNAPP and XDR platform is a comprehensive security solution designed to protect the full spectrum of modern attack surfaces in your cloud, data centers, user devices, build pipelines, a
- Financial Services
- 54% Mid-Market
- 38% Enterprise
1,511 Twitter followers
- Overview
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
Server Guard is a host security software system. It provides functions such as host vulnerability detection, baseline check, virus scan and removal, and unified asset management
- Overview
- Pros and Cons
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
Araali Networks allows lean security teams to discover their exposure - data, services, and backdoors and prioritize the top 1% of risks that really matter. The security team can use cloud-native co
- 67% Small-Business
- 33% Mid-Market
- Overview
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
Cloud and Container Security Assessment As organizations migrate to the cloud and realize cost saving, it’s important to ensure essential security controls and compliance standards are maintained. Cl
- Overview
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
Ever wondered if your cloud environment was security but didn't want to pay the 100K price tag that every other security vendor wants to charge you. You can use our product, get a great view into your
- Overview
- Pros and Cons
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
- 50% Mid-Market
- 50% Small-Business
- Overview
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
Deploy virtual machines on an edge platform with more geographically-diverse locations than centralized cloud providers, getting your workload closer to your end users and clients.
2,367 Twitter followers
- Overview
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
Whether you are running VMs in a private cloud powered by vSphere or a public clouds like IBM Softlayer, Microsoft Azure, vCloud Air or AWS, HyTrust DataControl provides strong encryption for virtual
1,601 Twitter followers
- Overview
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
MoreSec CNAPP spans multiple and hybrid clouds, with security protection covering from development to runtime which includes protection of infrastructure, microservice networks, workloads, and applica
- Overview
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
Oasis Defender provides comprehensive protection across *multiple* cloud environments. **Multi-dimensional visualization** - **Cloud Map** visualizes the entire network infrastructure across mul
- Overview
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
Plerion is an Australian, AI-driven cloud security platform, with an AI teammate. We help our customers achieve better security outcomes in less time, by simplifying cloud security. Challenges we h
136 Twitter followers
- Overview
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
PrivateCore enables enterprises to deploy servers in outsourced environments while maintaining data security.
- Overview
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
- 42% Mid-Market
- 33% Small-Business
295,569 Twitter followers
- Overview
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
Saner Cloud is an AI-fortified Cloud-Native Application Protection Platform (CNAPP) that moves beyond detection. It empowers organizations with intelligent, real-time, and automated attack prevention.
559 Twitter followers
- Overview
- Pros and Cons
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
Skyhigh Cloud Native Application Protection Platform CNAPP is the industry’s first platform to extend Cloud Access Security Broker CASB, bringing application and data context to converge Cloud Securit
- 100% Mid-Market
17,883 Twitter followers
- Overview
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
Cloud Detection & Response fused with real-time Posture. Transform risk detection with dynamic posture and behavior analysis. Gain all the context necessary to effectively triage, investigate, and
- Overview
- Pros and Cons
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
ThreatStryker builds on the ThreatMapper open source platform. ThreatStryker extends the vulnerability discovery capabilities, adding runtime attack detection, prediction and protection. Map your ap
- 100% Mid-Market
598 Twitter followers
- Overview
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
vArmour is the leading provider of Application Relationship Management. Enterprises around the world rely on vArmour to control operational risk, increase application resiliency and secure hybrid clou
Learn More About Cloud Workload Protection Platforms
What are Cloud Workload Protection Platforms?
Cloud workload protection is not a very intuitive term and likely sounds alien to people who do not operate cloud infrastructure. However, individuals that work frequently with cloud infrastructure are probably somewhat familiar with cloud workload protection. For context, cloud workload protection is typically described as a family of workload-centric security solutions designed to secure on-premises, physical, and virtual servers along with a range of infrastructure as a service (IaaS) providers and applications. Cloud workload protection platforms are an evolution of endpoint protection solutions designed specifically for server workloads.
Cloud workload protection solutions provide users with automated discovery and broad visibility of workloads deployed across cloud service providers. In addition to providing visibility, these tools protect individual workloads with malware protection, vulnerability scanning, access control, and anomaly detection features. Malware and vulnerability scanning are often paired with automated remediation or patching features to simplify and scale workload management. The platforms also provide access control through privilege management and micro-segmentation. However, their most interesting feature might be behavior monitoring powered by machine learning that discovers errors or unexpected changes. This makes it harder for threat actors and nefarious insiders to alter workloads, policies, or privileges. Once detected, access can be automatically restricted and reverted to its previous state.
Key Benefits of Cloud Workload Protection Platforms
- Complete visibility of workloads in the cloud
- Automated threat detection and response
- Custom protection for unique servers and workloads
- Workload, application, and infrastructure hardening
Why Use Cloud Workload Protection Platforms?
Cloud workload protection platforms provide numerous benefits, the most important being automated scaling, workload hardening, cross-cloud security management, anomaly detection, and response functionality.
Automation and efficiency — Cloud workload protection platforms automate a number of security operations related to the cloud. The first is discovery; after workloads are discovered, these platforms scale to protect large numbers of workloads and identify their unique security requirements. These platforms automatically detect new workloads and scan them for vulnerabilities. They can also automate the detection and response of security incidents.
Automation can save significant time for security teams, especially those that are tasked with protecting DevOps pipelines. These environments are constantly changing and need adaptable security solutions to protect them no matter their state. Some automation features may only be available through APIs and other integrations, but nonetheless simplify numerous tasks for IT professionals, engineers, and security teams.
Multicloud management — No two multicloud environments are alike. Multicloud architectures are complex, intricate environments that span across on-premises servers and cloud providers to deliver powerful, scalable, and secure infrastructure. Still, their inherent complexity can present challenges to security teams. Each workload has its own requirements and cloud workload protection platforms provide a single pane of glass and automated discovery to ensure no workload goes unprotected or unnoticed.
Different workloads may run on different operating systems or possess different compliance requirements. Regardless of the countless variations in security needs, these platforms can adapt to changes and enable highly customizable policy enforcement to protect a wide range of workloads.
Monitoring and detection — Workload discovery is not the only monitoring feature provided by cloud workload protection platforms. Their most important monitoring capability is behavioral monitoring used to detect changes, misuse, and other anomalies automatically. These platforms can harden workloads by detecting exploits, scanning for vulnerabilities, and providing next-generation firewalls. Still, prevention is only the first phase of cybersecurity. Once protection is in place, baselines must be measured and privileges must be distributed.
Any activity deviating from the established baselines should be detected and administrators should be alerted. Depending on the nature of the threat, various response workflows can be established to remedy the issue. Servers might require endpoint detection and response while applications require processes to be blocked. Regardless of the issue, threats should be modeled and workflows should be designed accordingly.
What are the Common Features of Cloud Workload Protection Platforms?
Cloud workload protection platforms can provide a wide range of features, but here are a few of the most common found in the market.
Cloud gap analytics — This feature analyzes data associated with denied entries and policy enforcement, giving information for better authentication and security protocols.
Cloud registry — Cloud registries detail the range of cloud service providers a product can integrate with and provide security for.
Asset discovery — Asset discovery features unveil applications in use and trends associated with traffic, access, and usage.
Governance — User provisioning and governance features allow users to create, edit, and relinquish user access privileges.
Logging and reporting — Log documentation and reporting provides required reports to manage business. Provides adequate logging to troubleshoot and support auditing.
Data security — Data protection and security features help users manage policies for user data access and data encryption.
Data loss prevention (DLP) — DLP stores data securely either on-premise or in an adjacent cloud database to prevent loss of data.
Security auditing — Auditing helps users analyze data associated with security configurations and infrastructure to provide vulnerability insights and best practices.
Anomaly detection — Anomaly detection is conducted by constantly monitoring activity related to user behavior and compares activity to benchmarked patterns.
Workload diversity — Diverse workload support would imply a cloud security solution that supports a range of instance types from any number of cloud service providers.
Analytics and machine learning — Analytics and machine learning improve security and protection across workloads by automating network segmentation, malware protection, and incident response.
