What Is Cloud Security Monitoring?

Monitoring virtual & physical servers for potential threats or security loopholes is termed as cloud security monitoring. It helps identify these issues and rapidly respond to them, keeping your network safe. Cloud security monitoring best practices include automation for data, application, & infrastructure behavior monitoring and assessment. It helps in providing better access control & faster response time in case of a security breach.

What Cloud Monitoring Includes?

For optimal performance, it's important to ensure that all necessary components are functioning in harmony.

 Cloud monitoring primarily includes the following:

• VM Monitoring: Monitoring the virtual computers (instances) created in the cloud.
• Monitoring Web Pages: Tracking the traffic, processes, resource utilisation, and availability of cloud-hosted websites.
• Database monitoring involves keeping track of various aspects of cloud database resources such as processes, queries, availability, and usage.
• Storage Monitoring entails monitoring cloud storage resources and tracking resource utilisation.
• Virtual network monitoring is the process of tracking virtual network resources, connections, devices, and performance.
• Application Monitoring: Proactively monitoring the availability and performance of essential cloud apps deployed on AWS or Microsoft Azure.

Benefits of Cloud Monitoring

There are numerous advantages to using cloud monitoring. All organizations, even those that only use private cloud architecture, can gain immense advantages from cloud monitoring activities like:

• Improving cloud application and network security
• Simplifying continuity plan implementation and enabling proactive (rather than reactive) risk mitigation
• Obtaining and sustaining optimal application performance
• Increasing service availability through timely issue reporting and resolution
• Reduced surprise cloud cost leaks as a result of total architecture visibility
• Event cloud activity grows due to simple scalability.
• Usability across numerous devices, with constant cloud awareness

How Does Cloud Security Monitoring Work?

Cloud service companies frequently include native cloud security monitoring tools as part of their architecture. A third-party monitoring system can also be added to your cloud environment. You can also monitor your cloud environment using on-premise security management tools. 

Log data from many servers, instances, and containers is aggregated by cloud monitoring solutions. A sophisticated cloud monitoring solution correlates and analyses collected data to detect unusual activities and notify the incident response team. Cloud security monitoring solutions usually include the following features:

• Continuous monitoring - A cloud monitoring solution should continuously monitor all cloud activity, allowing you to detect suspicious behavior and neutralise the threat in real time.
• Visibility - Moving to the cloud reduces visibility throughout your organization's infrastructure. A cloud monitoring solution can centralise monitoring while also providing a uniform picture of user, file, and application behaviour.
• Auditing - Effective monitoring and auditing capabilities can assist you in remaining in compliance with the regulations that apply to your organisation.
• Scalability - a cloud security monitoring solution can monitor massive amounts of data spread across multiple sites.
• Integration - For optimum visibility, the monitoring system should preferably integrate with your existing tools and services. Select a solution that is compatible with your current productivity suites, endpoint security solutions, and identity verification and authentication services.

Conclusion

Many organisations continue to believe that on-premise and hardware-based security is safer, however, this is not the case. The advantages of cloud security emphasis how cloud security outperforms on-premise security. Select the correct cloud security provider like Cloudlytics to ensure enhanced security of your cloud-hosted assets.