What Does Cloud Security Audit Mean?
A cloud security audit is a process used to assess the security posture of a cloud environment. This assessment can be performed manually or with automated vulnerability and pen testing (VAPT) tools. The goal of a cloud security audit is to identify a cloud service provider's vulnerabilities and the risks associated with using their cloud services.
The benefits of conducting a cloud security audit include ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements and improving the overall security posture of the organization using cloud services. This includes:
- Analyzing configuration settings.
- Monitoring access control lists.
- Reviewing activity logs.
- Automating compliance with security policies.
Techopedia Explains Cloud Security Audit
A cloud security audit is important because it helps organizations identify and mitigate the risks associated with using a specific cloud service. It is important for business customers to evaluate the security posture of their cloud providers because cloud services are often used to store personally identifiable information (PII) and other valuable data assets.
Cloud Security Audit Tools
Cloud security audit tools can help organizations the assess the risk of using a specific cloud service. Well-known cloud security audit tools include:
Prowler: This open source security tool is used to assess AWS security postures. Prowler contains more than 240 controls for creating custom security frameworks.
ScoutSuite: This open-source, multi-cloud audit tool takes advantage of APIs that cloud providers expose to gather configuration data and mitigate the potential risk of using Azure, AWS, GCP, Oracle or Alibaba cloud services.
CloudSploit: This open-source tool helps detect potential security threats for cloud infrastructure as a service (IaaS) accounts. CloudSploit looks for misconfigurations that can potentially lead to security breaches and monitors account activity in real-time for suspicious behavior. CloudSploit supports Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and Oracle Cloud audits.
Astra's Pentest: This cloud security audit tool is known for having a user-friendly dashboard that allows vulnerabilities to be visualized in real time. Features that help administrators determine the severity of a potential vulnerability are supported with options for remediation assistance and multiple re-scans.
