Cloud technology keeps advancing rapidly, giving businesses access to faster, cheaper, and more robust cloud storage and application capabilities. Unfortunately, hackers are also getting more innovative, and it’s becoming increasingly easy for them to find vulnerabilities in the cloud and exploit them for their purposes. That is where cloud security solutions come in.
A cloud security solution maintains data integrity, confidentiality, and availability. It also manages authentication and authorization policies across hybrid deployments of public and private clouds. These solutions help organizations comply with industry regulations and internal policies and procedures.
Also read: Cloud Security Woes Give Rise to Integrated CNAP Platforms
How to Choose a Cloud Security Provider
A cloud security company can provide access to many resources that are critical to any business’s health. The best way to ensure you have a secure cloud environment is to enlist an organization that understands your industry and your needs as a client.
Cloud security vendors promise to protect your valuable data, but how do you know which one is best for your needs? Here are five factors to help determine if a cloud security provider can protect your cloud data.
Top-notch data protection
The first thing you need to look at when evaluating a cloud security provider is their data protection abilities. Ensure they have all your bases covered, including backups and offsite storage solutions in case of emergencies or natural disasters – or ransomware.
Ask about their contingency plans and make sure they’re up-to-date and well thought out. Are there any situations where customers would be without access to their information? What kind of customer support is available? These are some of the questions you should ask before choosing a cloud security provider.
Multi-cloud, misconfigurations and more
Cloud services and SaaS apps tend to be pretty good at protecting data; cloud security services are largely about protecting your data between your environment and the service. There are many options to consider, like workload protection, configuration monitoring, application and network security and performance monitoring, support for multi-cloud and hybrid environments, and more. Be sure to get the protection you need.
Resiliency
Another key factor to consider when choosing a cloud security provider is how much redundancy and resiliency they have built in. Do they use high availability software so your data isn’t lost in an emergency? Do servers failover so nothing is lost? What is their track record on uptime?
Consider pricing
When looking at different cloud security providers, consider their rates and contracts. Some may charge more for 24/7 phone support than others. Also, some companies may offer more affordable long-term contracts, while others may only provide month-to-month agreements.
Look at their customer reviews
Before signing any agreement with a new company, take some time to read reviews from other customers who have used them in the past. You can better understand what to expect when working with them.
Check for certifications and qualifications
Check if your potential cloud security provider has certifications and qualifications that confirm they’re up to the task of securing your data. It’s also important to note whether or not they are compliant with privacy regulations and standards like HIPAA or PCI-DSS. Many organizations require compliance as part of their contract terms.
Also read: Cloud Security Best Practices
Top 10 Cloud Security Solution Providers
The best cloud security solutions help keep your data safe from internal and external threats while making sharing information with customers and employees easier. As more businesses adopt cloud technology, choosing a provider that can meet all of your needs is essential. Here are some top cloud security solution providers to include in your research.
Check Point
The Check Point CloudGuard platform is a cloud-based service designed to help enterprises protect their data from advanced threats, detect zero-day attacks and stop them before they spread across a network. In addition, it offers full visibility into all traffic going in and out of an organization’s network.
Check Point’s networking, and security solutions offer integrated protection against traditional and emerging threats. CloudGuard makes sure that organizations’ data is protected while enabling secure migration to and from public cloud services.
The solution also helps secure hybrid clouds by providing visibility into all workloads across physical, virtual and cloud environments. This unique approach enables enterprises to control their network infrastructure, whether on-premises or in a public or private cloud environment.
With CloudGuard’s single unified console, IT administrators can centrally manage security policies across multiple cloud infrastructures without worrying about moving resources between them or maintaining multiple management consoles.
CloudPassage Halo
A key part of any cloud security strategy should be visibility into cloud apps and workloads running in virtual environments. CloudPassage’s Halo, a SaaS solution, constantly scans data storage repositories, detects unauthorized access attempts, and alerts security teams.
Halo also collects evidence needed to take action against threats so they can be stopped before they cause damage. The solution supports AWS, Azure, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), IBM Cloud, OpenStack and VMware.
Prisma Cloud – Palo Alto Networks
Palo Alto Networks’ Prisma Cloud is a cloud-native security platform built to deliver automated, continuous protection of cloud-native applications. The solution leverages machine learning and behavioral analysis to identify threats and provide deep visibility into user activity. Using an agentless approach, it supports AWS Lambda functions, serverless containers, and Kubernetes clusters with policy-based enforcement of security best practices.
Prisma Cloud can be used as a standalone product or as part of Palo Alto Networks’ Next-Generation Security Platform.
Symantec cloud workload protection
Symantec’s Cloud Workload Protection (CWP) offers strong protection against malware and other threats. CWP is available as a standalone product or can be purchased as part of Symantec’s suite of security products. The software is installed on each workload instance in your public cloud environment to protect them from cyberattacks.
It automates security for public cloud workloads, enabling business process improvement, reduced risk, and cost savings. Additionally, it protects your data and applications by continuously monitoring all activity within an instance. If suspicious activity is detected, CWP blocks access to compromised files and alerts you so that you can take action.
The platform also monitors network traffic between workloads and services, providing additional protection against external attacks. By leveraging automation technology, CWP works with your existing IT infrastructure to deliver consistent security across public clouds.
Threat Stack
Threat Stack’s cloud security platform provides all cloud workloads visibility, monitoring, and alerting capabilities. Threat Stack allows you to track the change in applications over time, map vulnerabilities and misconfigurations, monitor application performance and security controls, and automatically identify changes in your environment indicative of an attack.
The solution uses supervised learning technology to detect suspicious behavior on your cloud infrastructure. Once deployed, Threat Stack can help customers understand how their public clouds perform at a granular level through continuous analysis of data from log events and system metadata.
Qualys
Qualys’ cloud security platform offers various services, including vulnerability management, web application scanning, network security monitoring and log analysis. Qualys can also be integrated with other cloud-based applications to ensure that all applications in your infrastructure are secure.
The platform offers a unified environment that provides visibility into security and compliance issues for your entire organization—and it’s also easy to use. It monitors containers, endpoints, mobile devices and virtual machines, making it one of the best solutions for companies looking to build or update their security strategy.
Datadog
This cloud-monitoring tool offers analytics, monitoring, alerting and app integration, giving you complete control over your data infrastructure. Datadog provides dashboards with visualizations of data flow so that you can quickly spot security problems as they happen. Alerts can be sent via email or Slack when key performance indicators are breached.
App integrations offer more detail into traffic patterns to help you optimize data usage across your infrastructure. Datadog helps you identify potential threats to your network before they become a problem. With features like automatic log correlation, cross-platform support and multi-cloud capabilities, Datadog is an excellent choice for businesses looking to protect their data cost-effectively. It’s also a great option if you need visibility into multiple applications on multiple platforms.
Fortinet
Fortinet provides cloud engineers complete visibility into all cloud resources and a single platform to enforce policies across public, private and hybrid clouds. With a comprehensive set of security services that can be deployed across any environment, customers can protect their infrastructure from advanced threats.
Fortinet provides Cloud Security Hub, an integrated solution that protects workloads running in both physical and virtual environments. This solution helps organizations monitor, detect and respond to cyberattacks in real-time by integrating multiple layers of security technology, including firewall, antivirus, intrusion prevention system (IPS), next-generation firewall (NGFW) and unified threat management (UTM).
It is fully scalable to meet growing demands as a business grows. It also includes automated deployment capabilities for faster provisioning without affecting performance or causing downtime.
Cisco
Cisco is one of the most well-known providers of cloud security. Their solutions protect your data, applications, and systems across all cloud environments. Cisco offers a wide range of cloud security solutions, including Cisco Umbrella for secure cloud access, Cisco Cloudlock for protection of SaaS applications, Cloud Email Security for blocking and remediating email threats, Stealthwatch Cloud for monitoring IaaS instances, and AppDynamics for application performance monitoring.
Enterprises can choose these solutions or combine them into their custom solution. Cisco’s core focus is protecting its customers’ networks from cyberattacks regardless of where they are hosted–the company offers support for public, private, and hybrid clouds.
CrowdStrike
CrowdStrike offers cloud security platforms that help organizations identify, investigate and respond to cyber attacks within their network. The platform lets users monitor network traffic, detect malware and intrusions across endpoints, and quickly investigate attacks.
It also provides real-time intelligence for better incident response and threat prevention. In addition, it offers endpoint protection capabilities for laptops, desktops and mobile devices, as well as data loss prevention (DLP) for cloud environments. CrowdStrike features a machine learning engine, enabling its products to adapt to new threats and automatically reduce false positives.
Research Your Options Carefully
This list of top cloud security providers isn’t exhaustive, but it will give you a good idea of the features you need to protect your environment.
Once you’ve chosen a cloud security provider, test their services by conducting regular audits and tests. Not only will this help protect your organization against outside threats, but it can also ensure that your current service is performing correctly. Although most providers offer free trials or demo accounts, it may be worth investing in additional testing to ensure your data will be safe.
Read next: Top Cybersecurity Companies & Service Providers
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