The Importance of Real-time Security and Compliance

As more organizations migrate IT infrastructure to the cloud, environments become increasingly complex. Companies are shifting bigger workloads away from legacy technologies in on-premises environments while handling larger data volumes than ever before. Additionally, modern-day customers and end users now expect fast, performant, and secure applications, no matter the industry or use case. Between responding to audits, investigating security alerts, and meeting everyday performance standards, IT security professionals are overwhelmed.

What’s more, the cloud computing space changes constantly. That means implementing the ideal cloud architecture can feel like trying to hit a moving target. This is especially true when it comes to cloud management and security. Maintaining visibility across all cloud resources and data is nearly impossible without a sophisticated monitoring system. More specifically, organizations need constant insight into what’s happening across their entire IT operation, no matter how big or complicated the footprint.

The problem is that many companies still use point-in-time security solutions. These programs and technologies rely on periodic scans to identify threats or vulnerabilities. This means that IT security teams constantly react to potential problems rather than finding issues proactively. Reactive fixes tend to be more costly to the business, and the longer problems are hidden, the more risk the enterprise takes on. The reactive security stance also tends to lead to alert fatigue and more false positives, both of which cause IT teams to lose their edge.

In a world where regulatory standards are more stringent and cyberattacks are more frequent, the point-in-time, reactive security approach doesn’t suffice. IT teams have to adopt a continuous compliance and security posture to keep up, reduce risk, and stay sharp.

Continuous Security and Compliance

Continuous compliance and security means several things.

First, it ensures that cloud environments comply with standards like HIPAA, SOC, PCI DSS, and more at all times. Many organizations use audits as a forcing function to update and plug gaps in their regulatory compliance programs. The better approach is to complete regular compliance checks and make updates continuously rather than when it’s absolutely necessary.

A continuous security program can also measure exposure to cyber threats, identify possible origins, and quantify remediation impacts at any moment. Doing this requires having an up-to-date view of all current security guardrails, as well as intelligent threat detection. Point-in-time security programs have to re-analyze everything and take much longer to provide IT teams with actionable insights.

With continuous monitoring, companies should also be able to study usage patterns, find operating inefficiencies, and forecast their security spending with greater accuracy. It’s much easier to make informed spending decisions based on known trends rather than snapshots.

Finally, a continuous compliance and security program is tailored to the unique needs of the company. Every business is different, which means no two roads to success are the same. A successful real-time security program must provide tailored recommendations for the cloud environment that align with the customer’s goals.

Creating a program with these characteristics is difficult without the right tools and technologies. As alluded to previously, the cloud computing world is evolving rapidly. This makes it hard to stay aligned with generally accepted best practices. It’s possible to build a robust continuous compliance and threat detection practice in-house. However, talent can be hard to recruit and retain over the long term.

That’s why ClearScale and Stream Security have joined forces to offer an elevated cloud management and security solution designed around real-time analytics and visibility.

The ClearScale and Stream Security Partnership

Through ClearScale and Stream Security’s strategic partnership, moving from a point-in-time to a continuous compliance and security program is easy, and the benefits are undeniable. ClearScale brings more than a decade of AWS cloud expertise and experience. Stream Security empowers IT teams with real-time threat detection, investigation, and response capabilities. With access to both companies, IT leaders have everything needed to level up their security and compliance programs.

Taking advantage of the ClearScale and Stream Security partnership, organizations can be ready for audits at any moment and eliminate false positives altogether. IT professionals can focus their energy on addressing genuine security threats rather than chasing down false alarms or getting stuck in audit preparations.

Business leaders can also forecast their cybersecurity spending and align resource consumption more closely with actual needs. By addressing threats in real time, organizations also reduce the likelihood of having to remediate major compliance and security gaps throughout the year. With continuous monitoring, teams can finally be proactive and stay in control over their AWS cloud environments as they evolve over time.

To learn more about how ClearScale and Stream Security combine to provide continuous compliance and cutting-edge cybersecurity for AWS environments, visit this web page.

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