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Cloud Security , Next-Generation Technologies & Secure Development , Security Operations

3 Major Benefits of Cloud Migration: Automation

Human Error Remains the No. 1 Cause of Cloud Misconfigurations
3 Major Benefits of Cloud Migration: Automation

Learn more about how automated security controls, policies and scans can simplify security.

See Also: Live Webinar | Navigating Identity Threats: Detection & Response Strategies for Modern Security Challenges

Automation is the bedrock to innovation, allowing people to work smarter, not harder. Think of major inventions like the dishwasher, laundry machines and the robotic vacuum. All of these automate processes that are mundane, tedious and time-consuming on their own. In the cloud, automation simplifies security, allowing you to shift your focus from manually deploying security for new infrastructure, reconfiguring or remediating risks to better investigation and other security business transformation projects.

"Automation is the bedrock to innovation, allowing people to work smarter, not harder. Think of major inventions like the dishwasher, laundry machines and the robotic vacuum. All of these automate processes that are mundane, tedious and time-consuming on their own."

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The importance of automation is reflected in its demand from security leaders. According to a study by Fugue, 95% of the IT, cloud and security professionals surveyed said that security automation would enable them to be more efficient and make cloud-based data security more effective.

Let's dive into the benefits of security automation, specific use cases and how to select the right tool for your cloud migration journey:

Benefits of Cloud Security Automation

Besides the obvious point that automation simplifies security by eliminating manual tasks, freeing you to focus on innovating, here's how automation can help you get ahead:

  • Minimizes misconfigurations: Human error remains the number one cause of cloud misconfigurations. Automation eliminates the guesswork and human errors that can compromise your infrastructure.
  • Adds resilience: Just as you wouldn't go without home insurance, having a backup process is essential. By automating that process, you minimize recovery time and can limit the impacts of a breach.
  • Fosters a DevOps culture by shifting left: Ensure security from the very beginning of the build process throughout deployment by integrating automated scans and testing from the moment code is committed to the repository.
  • Accelerates compliance: Performing manual compliance audits is a no-go when DevOps teams need to be as agile as possible. By automating compliance scans continuously and security policies throughout the development process, you can make sure you're demonstrating compliance without compromising build time.

Automation Use Cases

There are a lot of ways you can incorporate automation into your cloud migration journey, so where should you start? Here are some suggestions:

  • Manage permissions.
  • Use infrastructure as code.
  • Do virtual patching.

Choose Your Fighter: Automation Tools

As we've reiterated throughout this series, a cybersecurity platform solution is ideal, but they're not all equal. Your tool of choice should be able to handle the specific use cases we listed - permissions, IaC and remediation - as well as:

  • Discovery of workloads and cloud infrastructure across all the major cloud service providers, or CSPs, including Amazon Web Services - or AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform;
  • Continuous scanning and monitoring of IaC templates, instances, applications, cloud file storage, cloud networks and everything in between for vulnerabilities, malware and compliance risks. Yes, we already mentioned compliance scanning in this article, but it's so important it needs to be said twice - at least. Automated scanning should also generate reports, logs and alerts, so you can stay on top of anything unusual.
  • Detection and remediation of known and unknown vulnerabilities or risks to minimize disruption to workflows;
  • Integration with your existing tool set for automated security deployment, policy configuration and management, health checks, incident response and more.

Next Steps

Automation is the key to migrating to the cloud smoothly and efficiently. Think of automation like the power to your home. Your dishwasher, laundry machine and robotic vacuum can't work without power and therefore are rendered useless. After you've put your security strategy together, incorporating automation allows it to go from paper to practice.

Simplify your cloud migration journey by experiencing the benefits of automation with a free 30-day trial of Trend Micro Cloud One.



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