Cloud Security: Protecting What You Run in AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud
Cloud security is the protection of the workloads, data, identities and configurations you run in public and private cloud. It spans cloud security posture management (CSPM, finding misconfigurations), cloud workload protection (CWPP, securing VMs, containers and serverless), cloud infrastructure entitlement management (CIEM, controlling permissions) and cloud network security, increasingly brought together in a cloud-native application protection platform (CNAPP). It secures the cloud itself, as distinct from securing users going to the cloud, which is SSE.
Cloud is different, and that is why it needs its own discipline. In a data center you controlled the hardware and changed it slowly; in the cloud the infrastructure is software, spun up and torn down constantly by developers, and a single wrong setting can expose data to the entire internet in seconds. Under the shared responsibility model, the provider secures the cloud; you secure what you put in it, and most breaches happen on your side of that line, through misconfiguration and excessive permissions rather than sophisticated attack.
What Cloud Security Includes
A complete cloud security capability is built from a few standard parts:
- Cloud security posture management (CSPM): continuously finds misconfigurations and compliance gaps.
- Cloud workload protection (CWPP): secures VMs, containers and serverless at build and runtime.
- Cloud infrastructure entitlement management (CIEM): finds and reins in excessive permissions.
- Cloud network security: consistent segmentation and traffic control across clouds.
- SaaS security (CASB and SSPM): secures the configuration and use of SaaS applications.
- CNAPP: unifies the above into one platform and one prioritised view of risk.
Why Cloud Security? Why It Matters Now
- Misconfiguration is the main risk: most cloud breaches are settings, not zero-days.
- The cloud moves fast: infrastructure changes by the minute, so security must be continuous.
- Multicloud is normal: AWS, Azure and GCP each secure differently and need one consistent view.
- Permissions sprawl: over-privileged roles turn a small mistake into a large breach.
- Shared responsibility: the provider secures the cloud, but the risky part is yours.
- Compliance and residency: DPDP, CERT-In and sector rules apply to data wherever it runs.
The pattern behind most cloud incidents is not a movie-style hack; it is a storage bucket left public, a database exposed to the internet, an access key committed to code, or a role with far more permissions than it needed. The cloud makes these mistakes easy to make and easy to miss, because infrastructure is created and changed by developers moving fast, not by a central team moving carefully. Cloud security is, above all, about catching those mistakes continuously rather than discovering them in a breach notification.
The trap is noise. Point a scanning tool at a large cloud estate, and it will return thousands of findings, most of them low-risk, and teams quickly learn to ignore the lot, including the few that matter. The value is in a platform that correlates, an exposed workload with a real vulnerability, an over-privileged role and a path to sensitive data is the alert to act on, and the rest is background. That correlation is what a CNAPP does, and what turns cloud security from noise into action.
Proactive Data Systems designs cloud security on Cisco Multicloud Defense, Cisco Secure Workload and Panoptica, with Palo Alto Prisma Cloud, Wiz, Microsoft Defender for Cloud and Fortinet where they fit. We assess your cloud, prioritise what actually matters, and build security into how your teams deploy, so protection keeps pace with the cloud rather than fighting it.
Shared Responsibility: Who Secures What in the Cloud
Cloud security starts with the shared responsibility model. The provider secures the cloud; you secure what you run in it. The table below sets out the split, using the common infrastructure-as-a-service case.
| Layers | Who secures it | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Physical data center | Cloud Provider | Buildings, power, hardware |
| Virtualisation layer | Cloud Provider | Hypervisor, host OS |
| Cloud configuration | You | Storage settings, network rules |
| Identity and permissions | You | Roles, keys, access policies |
| Workloads and apps | You | VMs, containers, code |
| Data | You | Classification, encryption |
Most breaches happen on the customer side of this line. Proactive focuses effort exactly there, on the configuration, identities, workloads and data that are yours to secure.
What a CNAPP Is Made Of
Modern cloud security brings several functions into one platform. The table below sets out the parts and how they are delivered.
| Component | What it secures | Delivered with |
|---|---|---|
| CSPM (posture) | Misconfigurations across cloud accounts | Panoptica, Prisma Cloud |
| CWPP (workloads) | VMs, containers and serverless at runtime | Cisco Secure Workload, Panoptica |
| CIEM (entitlements) | Excessive cloud permissions and roles | Panoptica, Prisma Cloud |
| Cloud network security | Traffic and segmentation across clouds | Cisco Multicloud Defense |
| SaaS security (CASB/SSPM) | SaaS configuration and data use | Cisco Cloudlock, Netskope |
You rarely need all of it from day one. Proactive usually starts with CSPM to fix the misconfigurations that cause most breaches, then adds workload and permission control as the estate matures.
Cloud Security Across India: Why Compliance Now Follows the Data
Indian enterprises have moved to the cloud fast, often faster than their security has kept up, and the regulators have noticed: the DPDP Act, CERT-In directions and sector rules from the RBI and others apply to personal and regulated data wherever it runs, including in public cloud, and increasingly expect demonstrable control over configuration, access and residency. A misconfigured cloud holding customer data is now both a breach risk and a compliance one.
Which cloud, which region, how to prove residency and control, and how to secure a fast-moving multicloud estate without blocking the teams building on it, shape the right design here rather than on a datasheet. Proactive has secured cloud environments across manufacturing, BFSI, healthcare, IT and ITeS and GCC customers in Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Pune and Hyderabad, on AWS, Azure and Google Cloud, with posture, workload and permission control built into how they deploy.
Proactive Data Systems: The Partner That Cuts Cloud Risk to What Matters
Turning on a cloud security tool is easy. Cutting through thousands of findings to the handful that matter, securing a multicloud estate consistently, and doing it without slowing the developers is the part that rewards experience.
Proactive brings over three decades of enterprise infrastructure delivery, certified cloud and Cisco security engineers and an ISO 9001:2015 quality system. As a Cisco Preferred Partner certified across all five Cisco architectures, Networking, Security, Collaboration, Cloud and AI, and Services, we design cloud security on Cisco Multicloud Defense, Cisco Secure Workload and Panoptica, with Prisma Cloud, Wiz, Microsoft Defender for Cloud and Fortinet where they fit.
Cloud security protects what runs in the cloud. It works alongside Security Service Edge (SSE), which secures your users as they reach the cloud, while this practice secures the cloud workloads themselves. It connects to Application Security, which secures the code and APIs your cloud apps expose, and to Data Security, which protects the data inside them; here we secure the cloud configuration, workloads and permissions that depend on it.
From cloud security assessment through CSPM, workload protection, permission control and managed operations, backed by our SOC and a 24/7 service desk, Proactive secures your cloud at the speed your teams build on it.
