Sometimes, the data leaks that happen to businesses aren't directly related to breaches or targeted attacks. Instead, problems stem from the tiniest setup mistakes, when someone forgets to change a default password, or data gets stored in a repository where it doesn't belong. Over the years, every cloud environment has seen these problems, and each has done what it can to improve the security and simplicity of data management. Today, Google may have delivered one of the most comprehensive security strategies the cloud has ever seen.
The GCP "Security Command Center" provides users with an opportunity to take stock of all their cloud components in one UI. The idea is that if all a customer's cloud components are available to access, larger organizations can enjoy a wider array of cloud infrastructure solutions, repositories, and apps - offering protection against vulnerability. Let's explore the possibilities of the cloud security command center.
The Google Cloud SCC gives enterprises consolidated visibility over their cloud assets within the App Engine, Cloud Storage, Compute Engine, and Datastore segments. Using high-level asset inventories, you can view the resources of your GCP organization whenever you like, with a complete granular overview of your data assets. Cloud SCC even performs automated discovery scans that allow you to see what's changing in your environment.
With Cloud Security Command Center, today's teams finally can gather their data, identify possible threats, and act upon issues before they lead to business losses or damage. This provides deep insight into an application's performance and minimizes data risk so that everyone can mitigate threats to their cloud resources as quickly as possible. With the GCP SCC, you can monitor your cloud asset inventory, review access rights to critical resources, detect common vulnerabilities and more!
Because data insights are consolidated across App Engine, Cloud Storage, Compute Engine, and more, users can quickly gain insights into how many projects they have, which resources they need to deploy, where sensitive data can be found, and more. What's more, you can apply ongoing automatic security analytics to the mix and threat intelligence to keep track of your security health in a simple central dashboard. Google's cloud system even gives today's businesses the chance to use security "marks" that allow them to personalize how they're displaying their security information so that it can be managed and organized according to their needs.
All that functionality and the Google Cloud Platform Security Command Center also comes with the interoperability that you'd expect from the GCP. The SCC can integrate seamlessly with a range of other Cloud security tools, including Cloud Data Loss Prevention APIs, and the Cloud Security Scanner. If you feel that you need additional outside help to keep your information safe, there's always the option to use third-party solutions too, from companies like CrowdStrike, RedLock, and Cloudflare.
Essentially, Google believes that by giving today's companies a complete overview of their data system, they can improve the control that everyone has over their data assets. The Google Security Command Center is the all-inclusive approach to risk management, an intuitive and intelligent way for teams to get the analytics and support they need to mitigate security risks. Features include:
Rich Asset Discovery: because the GCP SCC integrates seamlessly with other Google Cloud solutions, you can discover and access the assets you need to protect across Compute Engine, App Engine, Cloud Datastore, and more, and see them all in the same place. Once you can see everything, you can identify deleted, modified, or new assets.
Sensitive Data Identification: Discover which of your storage systems have the best regulated and sensitive data in the Cloud DLP API. Prevent unnecessary exposure to dangerous circumstances and ensure that everyone only has access on a need-to-know basis. Your DLP API will integrate naturally with the SCC.
REST API: Make the most of the Cloud Security Command Center in your pre-existing solutions for security with the simple Google REST API.
Detect vulnerable apps: Google gives today's companies the opportunity to define and repair vulnerabilities in your apps, including flash injections and cross-site scripting. You can do all this with the Cloud Security Scanner - a component that naturally integrates with the Cloud Command Center.
Google Anomaly Detection: With the SCC, you can identify threats from everything from cryptocurrency miners to robots and botnets, with automatic anomaly detection using Google's latest technology.
Access Control: Make sure that the right Access policies are in place throughout your cloud resources, and receive alerts when policies unexpectedly change or get misconfigured. The open-source toolkit for the Google Cloud Platform, Forseti can integrate organically with the Cloud Security Command Center.
Third-party security tools: Integrate the output from existing security tools like CloudStrike, Cloudflare, and Palo Alto Networks to enhance the command center and help with detecting compromised endpoints, DDoS attacks, compliance violations, vulnerabilities, and network attacks.
Real-time Alerts: Find out what's happening within your cloud environment instantly thanks to real-time alerts from Google's command center. You can receive notifications through Jira with Pub/Sub integration, or SMS and Gmail.
If you're keen to take charge of your Cloud system, then the Security Command Center could be the perfect addition to your GCP strategy. There's no separate charge from the Google Cloud Platform for using the Cloud Security Command Center, however, you will need to pay if you plan on using extras like the Cloud Security Scanner, as it can have an impact on App Engine quota limits, and bandwidth traffic charges.
To find out more about setting up your security solution with the Security Command Center, reach out to your safety experts here at Coolhead Tech today! We'll help you to make the most of your cloud strategy.