Cloud security posture management (CSPM) tools have emerged as essential solutions to help organizations ensure the security and compliance of their multi-cloud deployments. This chapter focuses on the critical process of onboarding multi-cloud accounts to a CSPM tool. Onboarding refers to the initial setup and configuration required to connect and integrate cloud accounts from different providers into the CSPM tool’s centralized platform. This process is vital as it lays the foundation for effective cloud security monitoring, compliance assessment, and risk mitigation.
Throughout this chapter, we will delve into the key considerations, best practices, and steps involved in successfully onboarding multi-cloud accounts to a CSPM tool. Additionally, we will address potential challenges and roadblocks that organizations may face during the onboarding process. These challenges may include complexities related to identity and access management, establishing appropriate permissions, dealing with different APIs and authentication mechanisms, and ensuring data security during the transfer. We will discuss strategies to mitigate these challenges and offer practical solutions to overcome them effectively.
In this chapter, we’ll cover the following topics:
- Key considerations, steps involved, and best practices
- Account onboarding process
- Challenges and roadblocks during onboarding
- Offboarding cloud accounts
Let us get started!
Key considerations and steps involved
Onboarding cloud accounts to a CSPM tool is a critical step in ensuring the security and compliance of your cloud infrastructure. There are many things to consider before starting to invest effort into a CSPM tool.
Note
Key considerations and steps involved in onboarding accounts are discussed in a generic manner intentionally, as the scope of this book is to have a deep-dive discussion on CSPM technology and not a specific CSPM tool. Organizations should define their specific use cases that fit and align with their cyber security strategy and with the tool chosen. In addition to what is discussed in this chapter, you must follow the vendor documentation and support to cover your specific needs.
Let us dive deep into key considerations to keep in mind when onboarding cloud accounts to a CSPM tool.