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Security Service Edge (SSE), Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB), Cloud Firewall, Next Generation Secure Web Gateway (SWG), and Private Access for ZTNA built natively into a single solution to help every business on its journey to Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) architecture.
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Next Gen SASE Branch is hybrid — connected, secured, and automated
Netskope Next Gen SASE Branch converges Context-Aware SASE Fabric, Zero-Trust Hybrid Security, and SkopeAI-powered Cloud Orchestrator into a unified cloud offering, ushering in a fully modernized branch experience for the borderless enterprise.
Learn more about how Netskope can help you secure your journey to the cloud.
Security Visionaries Podcast
2025 Predictions In this episode of Security Visionaries, we're joined by Kiersten Todt, President at Wondros and former Chief of Staff for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to discuss predictions for 2025 and beyond.
Stay ahead of the latest security trends and connect with your peers.
SASE Week 2024 On-Demand
Learn how to navigate the latest advancements in SASE and zero trust and explore how these frameworks are adapting to address cybersecurity and infrastructure challenges
Join Netskope's 3,000+ amazing team members building the industry’s leading cloud-native security platform.
Help shape the future of cloud security
At Netskope, founders and leaders work shoulder-to-shoulder with their colleagues, even the most renowned experts check their egos at the door, and the best ideas win.
Netskope’s partner-centric go-to-market strategy enables our partners to maximize their growth and profitability while transforming enterprise security.
Security Service Edge (SSE), Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB), Cloud Firewall, Next Generation Secure Web Gateway (SWG), and Private Access for ZTNA built natively into a single solution to help every business on its journey to Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) architecture.
Next Gen SASE Branch is hybrid — connected, secured, and automated
Netskope Next Gen SASE Branch converges Context-Aware SASE Fabric, Zero-Trust Hybrid Security, and SkopeAI-powered Cloud Orchestrator into a unified cloud offering, ushering in a fully modernized branch experience for the borderless enterprise.
2025 Predictions In this episode of Security Visionaries, we're joined by Kiersten Todt, President at Wondros and former Chief of Staff for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to discuss predictions for 2025 and beyond.
Learn how to navigate the latest advancements in SASE and zero trust and explore how these frameworks are adapting to address cybersecurity and infrastructure challenges
At Netskope, founders and leaders work shoulder-to-shoulder with their colleagues, even the most renowned experts check their egos at the door, and the best ideas win.
Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) is a security protocol that persistently oversees and administers cloud infrastructure to guarantee adherence to security guidelines and optimal practices. It helps organizations identify and remediate vulnerabilities and misconfigurations in their cloud environments.
Security posture is a reference to the cybersecurity strength of an organization, which includes an assessment of its ability to detect and respond to security threats. Logically, this means that security posture management deals with the oversight and control of an organization’s detection and response to threats by means of security posture management software.
A security posture includes an array of tools and strategies used to guard networks, devices, users, and data from all kinds of threats, including:
Compromised/stolen credentials
Breaches
Data loss
Network performance attacks
Misconfiguration/Configuration drift
Malware
Spyware
Ransomware
And many others
The better an organization is at minimizing its risk profile, responding to potential threats, and adhering to security compliance standards, the more robust the security posture is.
What is Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)?
Now that we understand what security posture is, Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) refers to a suite of security tools and practices meant to identify and correct misconfiguration issues between organizations and the cloud. More specifically, services like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, and other Cloud Service Provider (CSP) Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) cloud environments.
This is different from SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) which deals with the configurations of SaaS applications, rather than the infrastructure and platform services that CSPM covers.
Why do you need CSPM?
The use of cloud services is on the rise as more businesses move their businesses away from on-premise data storage and web hosting in favor of cloud-based infrastructure. The security risks associated with misconfiguration are numerous. In fact, 48% of misconfigurations in the cloud lead to the exposure of sensitive data. This puts your data, your users, your devices, and your systems all at risk of intentional and unintentional breaches.
Even if you configure your cloud infrastructure correctly, over time they can drift away (either intentionally or unintentionally) from their original setups. This is known as “misconfiguration drift” which happens when users reconfigure permissions or other settings in order to make exceptions for specific work needs, such as moving data from one place to another. The problem is that these changes leave other assets exposed, even if unintentionally. Eventually, these changes add up, leading to an unsecure cloud posture that leaves assets and systems open to those who would otherwise not have access to them.
Cloud security posture management uses security policies, monitoring capabilities, and automated and guided remediation tools in order to enforce established configurations and log any issues with those configurations. This includes user access, data storage rules, application use, and settings changes.
As you can see in the diagram above, the user accesses the IaaS platform, which is governed by the settings and rules enforced by the CSPM. Any data moved between the IaaS to a SaaS application runs through a cloud access security broker (CASB) in order to ensure compliance with data handling standards. Once the data reaches the SaaS applications, the rules and standards set by the SaaS security posture management (SSPM) take over.
What are the key capabilities of CSPM?
1. Continuous assessment Cloud security posture management isn’t just a one-time process. The key component of CSPM is the continuous detection and assessment of your cloud posture to weed out any misconfigurations within your infrastructure.
2. Automated remediation CSPM saves time, money, and resources by providing automated and guided remediation over minor and common misconfiguration issues. This way analysts are able to spend more time handling complex security issues.
3. Asset classification CSPM identifies assets that live within your cloud infrastructures and classifies how they are currently configured. This allows security teams to set up configurations that make sense for their work needs, assets, data, users, and devices.
4. Maintain compliance standards There are a whole litany of compliance standards that companies must adhere to, including HIPAA, PCI DSS, GDPR, and many others. CSPM helps security administrators maintain compliance when handling user data when operating in the cloud by providing predefined compliance templates to easily adhere to major regulations.
What is the difference between CSPM and SSPM?
SaaS security posture management (SSPM) also deals in evaluating cloud security posture. The only difference between CSPM and SSPM is the scope of evaluation. CSPM evaluates the security posture of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) platforms, while SSPM evaluates posture as the smaller Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) application level.
Other than the scope of the evaluation, the capabilities and benefits of the platforms are nearly identical.
What is the difference between CSPM and CASB?
Perhaps this isn’t the right way to look at this. CASB and CSPM aren’t interchangeable within a cloud security infrastructure. Instead, a cloud access security broker (CASB) works hand-in-hand with CSPM in order to enforce security policies within the cloud. More specifically, a CASB acts as the policy enforcement point between different cloud services and the users accessing them.
CSPM supplements these enforcement capabilities of the CASB by continuously monitoring, evaluating, and remediating configuration issues between users and IaaS platforms. Using both services enables administrators to maintain their security policies on all levels of their cloud infrastructure and prevent configuration drift.
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