Imagine your cloud environment as a commercial plane. Before flight, planes undergo strict maintenance schedules, tests, and preflight checks to be in compliance with safety regulations. These actions are similar to your posture-based security measures, ensuring your cloud environment is well-configured, free from known vulnerabilities, and adhering to best practices.
But aviation safety doesn’t stop on the tarmac — pilots don’t just cross their fingers and hope the plane stays safe on its way to a destination. There are systems in place that monitor weather conditions, air traffic from other planes, flight paths, and plane performance. These would be your runtime controls acting as your real-time eyes in the sky for anything that can go wrong. Similarly, runtime security for your cloud estate looks for threats that have slipped through the cracks, enabling responders to take action.
Traditional approaches, like security posture management, have long been the cornerstone of cloud security, and are a typical first step in establishing a strong cloud security strategy. However, the dynamic nature of cloud environments, which are always rapidly scaling and increasing in complexity, means a prevention-only approach can’t guarantee safety.
Your teams need a way to mitigate attacks when attackers exploit gaps.
Security posture tools provides valuable visibility into the many misconfigurations and vulnerabilities that can exist within your environment.
That being said, it’s not an easy button to solve all of your problems. It requires alignment across multiple teams (DevOps, security, product) and the establishment of mature shift-left guardrails. These guardrails, while important, can introduce significant complexity and often slow down development cycles as teams adapt.
Implementing such guardrails demands thoughtful coordination, a clear understanding of shared responsibilities, and most importantly, buy-in across the board.
One of the most challenging aspects of building a successful security program is aligning and enabling teams, which often have competing priorities. Security isn’t just a technical challenge, it’s a cultural one. It takes strong leadership support, time invested in training, and an ongoing effort to integrate security into existing processes without overwhelming developers.
Convincing teams to take ownership of new security best practices, especially when it means adjusting how they work or adding steps before code can be deployed, is a delicate balance.
Solutions like Sysdig can help ease this burden by providing developer-friendly, prioritized remediation guidance and integrating seamlessly into the tools and workflows teams are already using. This kind of support doesn’t just reduce friction; it helps security become a collaborative effort rather than a bottleneck.
Relying solely on posture management, no matter how strong, leaves you exposed to the risk of a single misconfiguration or vulnerability. A misconfigured access control, improperly scoped API key, or unsecured shared credential can become the weak link in an otherwise secure system. Often, attackers only need to identify one flaw to gain a foothold and move laterally across the environment, bypassing otherwise robust defenses.
Even for organizations that achieve near-perfect security posture, this approach still has its limitations. Certain types of attacks can bypass these proactive measures, even when all misconfigurations and known vulnerabilities are addressed. The following threats can evade traditional posture-based security checks and create unseen gaps in your environment:
When these threats are exploited, the consequences can be severe, and posture-based security often isn’t enough to stop them. Zero-day vulnerabilities like Log4Shell and Leaky Vessels bypassed posture checks entirely, and allowed attackers to silently infiltrate systems before defenses even know what to look for.
Supply chain attacks can compromise entire pipelines, spreading risk through trusted code. Unpatchable vulnerabilities can’t be resolved through traditional means, leaving persistent cracks in your defenses.
Meanwhile, compromised identities and insider threats can slip past posture controls by abusing legitimate credentials. In all of these cases, visibility alone isn’t enough. Organizations need runtime protection and real-time detection to truly defend against these evolving risks.
Runtime security is a dynamic, real-time approach that detects and mitigates threats as they occur instead of relying solely on preventing them before they happen.
This approach to security provides granular visibility into the actions being performed on the system, rather than just reporting on how they are configured. When posture-based security misses something, runtime security can step in as the last line of defense to protect the system during active attacks, alleviating the fear of data breaches and unauthorized access.
For organizations still maturing in their cloud security journey, runtime security is often the most effective first step in securing their environment. Unlike other elements of a cloud security platform, runtime security doesn’t generate additional work — it actively works to protect your environment.
It’s easy for security teams to implement and manage right away, because it doesn’t rely on developers or engineering teams for remediation. This allows runtime security to provide immediate, comprehensive protection while other processes, like implementing shift-left practices and addressing vulnerability backlogs, are still being developed. Runtime security establishes a strong security foundation from the very start.
Organizations with a more mature security posture can also benefit significantly from adding runtime security. It helps address gaps in existing defenses that might bypass posture-based checks, such as zero-day vulnerabilities, compromised identities, or supply chain attacks, while providing a baseline of protection as new vulnerabilities and misconfigurations are remediated.
Runtime security offers full visibility into attacks, enabling organizations to assess the scope, determine if the attack is ongoing, and take corrective actions to prevent future incidents.
A comprehensive cloud security strategy combines both posture-based and runtime security to create a multi-layered defense. Posture-based security builds a strong foundation by ensuring proper configurations, mitigating known vulnerabilities, and adhering to best practices.
Runtime security complements this by serving as a safety net, quickly containing any threats that slip through the cracks to minimize the potential impact of an attack. This combined approach not only provides immediate, comprehensive protection but also allows your security processes to evolve alongside emerging threats, ensuring your cloud environment remains secure.
Sysdig is leading the way in runtime protection with a comprehensive CNAPP platform powered by advanced, real-time runtime security. Sysdig is built on the open source foundation of Falco, which enables over 60% of Fortune 500 companies worldwide to secure their cloud environments.
Discover how Sysdig can enhance the security of your cloud environment — request a personalized demo today to explore how our solutions align with your specific needs.
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