How to Integrate CSPM into Your Clients’ IaaS Strategy

Your clients are struggling to stay secure in the cloud now more than ever. According to a 2024 IBM security report, about 40% of all breaches involved data distributed across multiple environments, such as public clouds, private clouds, and on premises. Data breaches solely involving public clouds were the most expensive type of data breach, costing 5.17 million USD on average, a 13.1% increase from last year. Breaches involving multiple environments were more common but slightly less expensive than public cloud breaches, and on-premises breaches were the least costly.

As a managed service provider (MSP), managed security service provider (MSSP), or IT consultant, you want to deliver value to your clients and help them to avoid these record-setting data breach costs.

In this blog post, we’ll review common cloud security challenges that are contributing to the findings above. We’ll then discuss how you can give your clients access to CIS Hardened Images^®, resources which factor into a comprehensive approach to cloud security posture management (CSPM), so that you can maximize your overall impact.

Challenges with Securing the Cloud for Your Clients

Oftentimes, your clients adopt cloud technology to run business-critical applications rather than investing in or purchasing hardware, software, and network infrastructures. As more and more applications are deployed in the cloud, large and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) experience a shift from a traditional on-premises IT infrastructure to a cloud-based IT infrastructure. For them, adopting cloud solutions offers ease of access to information, quick deployment, low IT infrastructure requirements, and, most importantly, low costs.

The increase in the adoption rate of cloud services and cloud infrastructure and platform services unfortunately brings with it an increase in complexity and unmanaged risk for your clients. Such complexity is contributing to a rise in cloud-based misconfigurations and other instances of human error.

According to a Gartner survey, 80% of data security breaches stem from misconfiguration-related issues. By 2025, human errors will account for 99% of all cloud environment failures.

What This Looks Like in Practice

Cyber threat actors may exploit insufficient authorization, overlapping trust boundaries, and other vulnerabilities in the cloud to distribute malware and conduct Denial of service (DoS) attacks. As a result, organizations must allocate additional resources to enhance their cloud security posture and protect against emerging threats in the cloud.

Gartner foresees that your clients and other organizations will continue to struggle with misconfigurations for years to come. They go so far as to predict that by 2026, more than half of all organizations will make preventing cloud misconfiguration a cloud security priority.

Your clients might look to other MSPs, MSSPs, and IT consultants that provide traditional Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) solutions. But these solutions aren’t sufficiently robust. They deliver basic configuration and risk assessment capabilities that do not account for hybrid and multi-cloud capabilities. They also don’t leverage the cloud security controls your clients need to address their duties as part of the cloud shared responsibility model.

Cloud Security Posture Management as the Way Forward

Your clients have no choice but to turn to software and automation to address these security gaps. In contrast to the traditional IaaS tools discussed above, CSPM offers both.

CSPM is a vital component of cloud security, focusing on maintaining and enhancing the security posture of cloud environments. As organizations increasingly adopt cloud computing and embrace multi-cloud and hybrid cloud architectures, ensuring a strong security posture becomes paramount. CSPM solutions offer comprehensive visibility, continuous monitoring, and automated security controls to address security risks and compliance requirements across cloud infrastructures.

CSPM Plays a Crucial Role in Cloud Security by:

Ensuring Compliance

CSPM solutions help organizations maintain compliance with various regulatory standards and frameworks, such as GDPR, HIPAA, and PCI DSS. They provide automated checks, policy enforcement, and real-time monitoring to detect and remediate security configuration violations.

Strengthening Security Posture

CSPM enables organizations to proactively identify cloud environments' misconfigurations, vulnerabilities, and access risks. By continuously monitoring for security gaps and providing actionable insights, CSPM solutions empower organizations to strengthen their security posture and minimize the risk of data breaches.

Managing Cloud Complexity

Multi-cloud and hybrid cloud environments often involve multiple cloud service providers and complex infrastructure configurations. CSPM solutions offer centralized visibility and control, allowing organizations to manage security policies, track compliance status, and enforce consistent security practices across their cloud assets.

CSPM can help your clients specifically address misconfigurations, as noted by Gartner.

"Misconfigurations are the leading cause of cloud security breaches, with nearly 60% of all data breaches attributed to this issue. Ensuring proper configuration through automated solutions like Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) is crucial to maintaining a secure cloud environment." — Gartner, 2023 Cloud Security Report

CSPM solutions enable your clients to automate security assessments, remediation, and policy enforcement, facilitating seamless collaboration between development, operations, and security teams.

The future of the CSPM market looks bright, as well.

• The CSPM solutions market is expected to grow from $3,146 million in 2022 to $6,292 million in 2027 (CAGR of 14.9%).
• The CSPM market for IaaS is expected to grow from $3,202 million in 2022 to $6,429 million in 2027 (CAGR of 14.9%), eclipsing the markets for PaaS and SaaS at $742 million and $1,526 million in 2027, respectively.

CIS Hardened Images: A Win-Win for You and Your Clients

To help you seize on the growth of the CSPM market and deliver value to your clients, we’ve created the CIS Hardened Images Reseller Program.

The CIS Hardened Images Reseller Program is a sales program offered by the Center for Internet Security^® (CIS^®) allowing IT consultants, MSPs, MSSPs, and other resellers to sell CIS Hardened Images as part of their service offering to their customers.

By joining this program, you can provide your clients with immediate access to built-in security configurations in their cloud environments that supports compliance with numerous cross-industry standards.

In the process, you can add value to your existing product portfolio and create strong relationships with your clients supporting their cloud security needs.

An Overview of the CIS Hardened Images

CIS Hardened Images are virtual machine images hardened with the globally recognized secure configuration recommendations of the CIS Benchmarks™, the only vendor-neutral, independently developed configuration guidance for both public and private industry in existence.

CIS Hardened Images help organizations implement built-in security in their cloud environments that support compliance with numerous cross-industry standards.

Want to take a closer look at the CIS Hardened Images? Check out our video below.

CIS Hardened Images are designed to help organizations take a proactive approach to their cloud security. The 65+ different Hardened Images have been used in more than 75 countries, and users have clocked more than four billion compute hours to date.

"Using hardened images significantly improves cloud security by ensuring that virtual machine images adhere to the highest security standards from the start. This proactive approach helps in minimizing vulnerabilities and ensures compliance with industry benchmarks, making cloud deployments more secure and reliable." — Gartner, 2023 Cloud Security Report

Benefits of CIS Hardened Images for Your Clients

More Robust Security

CIS Hardened Images provide secure configurations that help limit exposure to cybersecurity threats and provide a more secure environment for your clients’ digital assets.

The images are pre-configured to stringent CIS Benchmarks standards that drastically reduce system vulnerabilities. This offers you a prime opportunity to deliver an added layer of security assurance to clients, differentiating themselves in the market.

Simplified Setup and Compliance

CIS Hardened Images streamline the process of hardening your systems, resulting in significant time and cost savings. This efficient approach can be a compelling selling point for resellers, as it means quicker deployments and lower operational costs for end customers.

By reducing the time and cost associated with manually hardening a system or establishing internal rollout procedures, CIS Hardened Images offer a cost-efficient alternative without compromising on quality.

In being pre-configured to the CIS Benchmarks, these images adhere strictly to internationally recognized standards, making them an appropriate solution for industries that handle sensitive data and demand stringent data protection measures, such as healthcare, finance, and government.

Versatility

CIS Hardened Images are readily available on Amazon Web Services (AWS) Marketplace, AWS GovCloud (U.S. Region), and AWS for the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC); Microsoft Azure Marketplace, Microsoft Azure Government Marketplace; Google Cloud Platform (GCP) Marketplace; and Oracle Cloud Marketplace.

They offer pre-configured OS security for landing zones on all the mentioned cloud service platforms.

Supports CSPM

Your clients’ need for IaaS security strategies is growing due to the need to detect cloud malware, monitor IaaS, and check for security, and compliance issues have grown as centers are moving their functions to the cloud.

Incorporating CIS Hardened Images into your clients’ IaaS strategy integrates well with other verticals in their cybersecurity architecture such as identity and access management or network traffic protection within the shared responsibility model, aiding in creating a comprehensive CSPM strategy.

Get Started Supporting Your Clients with CIS Hardened Images

CSPM solutions continuously monitor and assess an organization's cloud infrastructure to identify misconfigurations, vulnerabilities, and compliance gaps. By providing your clients with access to CIS Hardened Images, you can help them to address security risks and adhere to security best practices, thereby maintaining a strong security posture in the cloud.

Interested in getting started?