Extending Tripwire into the Cloud

You might already rely on Tripwire® Enterprise for fundamental processes like change management and regulatory compliance. But did you know that you can also take advantage of Tripwire products to secure your data in cloud environments?

By 2020, 83 percent of enterprise workloads will be in the cloud1 . It’s just one metric among many illustrating that the notion that on premises data is more secure is now a thoroughly debunked myth. Cloud configurations allow you to approach security with increased visibility and granularity, but that doesn’t mean you can shift your systems to the cloud and assume your data will be safe. You need security solutions that can monitor and report on all your organization’s data—be it on premises, virtual, in the cloud or hybrid. Let’s take a look at some use cases to see how using a suite of Tripwire products enhances your cloud security.

Cloud Security Challenges

Your cloud systems need proactive and ongoing support for integrity monitoring, configuration management, vulnerability management and more. Here are a few ways cloud security poses its own particular challenges:

Visibility: The cloud can pose frustrating visibility issues. Organizations need fast access to information—like where exactly each bit of their data is stored— and run into a lack of transparency on the part of their storage vendors.

Hybrid environments: Cloud native organizations are on the rise, thanks to the inherent benefits of containerized data, elasticity and diverse microservices. But where does that leave organizations with legacy on premises systems? Storing some data on site and some data in the cloud results in needing security tools that are nimble across multiple environments.

Cloud management accounts: Cloud management accounts help you leverage the resources provided by your cloud infrastructure. However, improper account configuration can spell disaster if a hacker gains control.

New development practices: As of last year, 80 percent of enterprises reported plans to invest in adopting DevOps2 . Continuous integration methodologies like this one offer a wealth of advantages, from faster time to market to increased employee collaboration and maximized profits. But in the process of transitioning to DevOps, organizations can forget to bake security into their new workflows, leaving them more vulnerable than before.

Elasticity: In a dynamic cloud environment, assets are spun up and down all the time—some might only be up for a few minutes to help with a workload and quickly spun down once no longer needed. If you’re not using a product with an elastic pricing model—one based on a per hour usage—you could be wasting resources by paying for more cloud computing than you actually need.

Tripwire Enterprise with Cloud Management Assessor

Tripwire Cloud Management Assessor lets you securely manage your cloud workloads and management accounts. Deeper monitoring of your cloud environment gives you an advantage against cyber criminals who stand to benefit from you not having a clear picture of your AWS, Azure and Google Cloud security configurations. Plus, Tripwire Cloud Management Assessor gives you the visibility you need to keep your cloud management accounts in compliance.

Protect cloud management accounts: As soon as you set up Tripwire Cloud Management Assessor, it automatically takes stock of your AWS S3 buckets and Azure Storage and notifies you of any exposure to anonymous public access. Use your S3 Storage dashboard to see what objects and buckets need securing, and promote any necessary changes to your new baseline.

Serverless File Integrity Monitoring: Keep track of views and changes in all your cloud files. You can view a dashboard to see charts visualizing new S3 buckets and objects that have become exposed, and drill into the details of all your exposed files as well as Azure containers. You can easily use Tripwire Enterprise’s approval system to efficiently promote changes to the new baseline, marking intentionally exposed files as approved. And don’t worry about scaling or provisioning—Tripwire Cloud Management Assessor utilizes serverless FIM. Tripwire’s integration with Amazon Web Services brings you near real time serverless FIM in that environment.

Using Tripwire IP360️ in the Cloud

You need to know about the security risks posed by your current cloud configurations. But you also need to know which risks are the most critical so you can prioritize your defense. Tripwire IP360 can identify over 100,000 vulnerabilities with advanced risk scoring, and automates cloud authentication and credentials processes. Do you use Amazon Linux, Docker, AWS, Google Cloud or Azure? Tripwire IP360 uses pre built images to detect threats on over 2,500 operating environments, as well as scripting in Chef, Ansible and Puppet

Collecting Logs from Cloud Workloads with Tripwire Log Center

Too much data without actionable context isn’t helpful. With Tripwire LogCenter, you get greater peace of mind with reliable event monitoring, and reporting on the events that matter. Customize rules using a drag and drop interface and review correlations that provide you with insight on how to respond.

Summary

Your assets in the cloud aren’t secured by default. And security best practices for the cloud aren’t the same as best practices for on premises data—there’s no one size fits all security posture. Complete your cloud security toolkit through Tripwire Enterprise, Tripwire IP360 and Tripwire LogCenter.