Cloud security posture management tools help in the identification and remediation of risks across cloud infrastructures, including Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Software as a Service (SaaS), and Platform as a Service (PaaS). These tools continuously assess the security posture across multi-cloud environments by maintaining a current inventory of the cloud assets for proactive analysis and risk assessment to detect any misconfigurations. Once these misconfigurations are identified, security controls are developed and implemented. CSPM solutions also integrate with DevOps tools, streamlining the incident response process and ensuring continuous compliance with regulatory requirements and security frameworks by providing visibility of the cloud environment’s security posture.
Gartner defines network automation platforms as systems that automate and orchestrate the configuration, deployment, and operational management of network infrastructure. Network automation platforms are delivered via software and interact directly with network devices, network controllers (or fabric managers), network services, network management systems, and other automation tools.
Gartner defines network security microsegmentation — also referred to as zero-trust network segmentation — as an effort that can create more granular and dynamic access policies than traditional network segmentation (often north-south traffic segmentation). It allows the insertion of a security policy between any two workloads in the same broadcast domain — with microsegmentation technologies narrowing fine-grained network zones down to individual assets and applications. Microsegmentation tools support the implementation of finer-grained zoning across public, private and hybrid cloud infrastructures. Cybersecurity leaders must understand the key features, use cases, and role of microsegmentation in their environment, as well as determine which model is the best fit for their needs.