Cloud Security Tools: Cloud Provider or Third Party Tools?

What Are Cloud Security Tools? What are Cloud Security Solutions?

Cloud security tools are software applications or cloud services that can help you secure your cloud computing environment. Cloud environments are highly complex, and are very difficult to monitor and secure manually. Organizations use dedicated cloud security tools to achieve visibility over cloud workloads and more effectively detect and respond to threats.

Different tools can carry out various functions and provide services and applications with additional layers of protection. These functions include: 

• Identity and access management (IAM)
• Network security, including backups
• Workload security, integrated with DevSecOps
• Compliance management and security posture
• Threat mitigation

Who Is Responsible for Cloud Security?

It is important for cloud adopters to be aware of their shared responsibility for security. The shared responsibility model is practiced by all cloud providers. It means that the cloud provider must claim responsibility for the security of the cloud, while the responsibility for securing workloads and data running in the cloud is the responsibility of the cloud customer — your organization.

The following table summarizes the responsibilities of each of the parties.

In addition, the cloud customer is responsible for:

• Ongoing maintenance of platforms and applications running in the cloud (except those that are fully managed)
• Ensuring secure configuration of operating systems, databases and applications, logging, and secure configuration of all SaaS applications
• Login controls, authentication mechanisms, and permission management
• Protecting data in transit into and out of cloud resources (ingress/egress)
• Encrypting data stored in the cloud
• Applying relevant cloud security best practices across all cloud resources

Tips from the expert

Steve Moore is Vice President and Chief Security Strategist at Exabeam, helping drive solutions for threat detection and advising customers on security programs and breach response. He is the host of the “The New CISO Podcast,” a Forbes Tech Council member, and Co-founder of TEN18 at Exabeam.

In my experience, here are tips that can help you better utilize cloud security tools and solutions:

Deploy context-aware security controls
Use security solutions that apply context-aware access controls—such as time-based or geo-location policies—to ensure resources are only accessible under specific, pre-defined conditions, adding an extra layer of protection.

Evaluate data residency and sovereignty requirements
Ensure your cloud security tools align with regional data sovereignty laws, especially if your business operates in multiple jurisdictions. This is critical for meeting compliance and avoiding costly violations.

Adopt multi-factor integration strategies
Use cloud-native IAM tools that seamlessly integrate with multifactor authentication (MFA) and identity federation across multi-cloud and hybrid environments. This strengthens your security while simplifying identity management.

Leverage cloud-specific threat modeling
Regularly conduct threat modeling exercises that are tailored to your specific cloud architecture. This helps identify attack vectors unique to your cloud services and informs more effective security measures.

Use policy-based automation for least privilege
Implement least privilege access using automated policy-based enforcement tools, which ensure that users and applications only have the necessary permissions without manual intervention, reducing the risk of human error.

Cloud Provider Security Tools: Pros and Cons

Major cloud providers such as AWS, Google Cloud Platform, and Microsoft Azure provide an extensive set of built-in security tools. For example:

• AWS provides the AWS Security Hub, AWS Shield, a DDoS mitigation service, and Amazon Web Application Firewall (WAF), a security solution that protects against application-layer attacks.
• Google Cloud Platform provides its cloud-based Firewall, Cloud Security Command Center and Cloud Armor, a WAF-based network security service. 
• Microsoft Azure offers a number of security products, specifically Azure Security Center for management, Azure DDoS Protection, Azure Sentinel, a cloud-native security information and event management (SIEM) solution, and Azure WAF.

Pros of first-party cloud security tools

The advantages of security tools offered by cloud providers include:

• Specially customized for defending against threat vectors and weaknesses on the cloud provider’s infrastructure
• Pre-built security policies, WAF rules, etc.
• Integrated with all other cloud provider services, including logging and reporting, out of the box
• Able to secure cloud resources on the same cloud with no major integration effort
• Some of these solutions are free or provided at low cost compared to third-party security tools

Cons of first-party cloud security tools

• Protection is limited – for example, cloud provider DDoS services mainly focus on network-level protection and not application-level DDoS, and WAF services enable limited customization.
• Ongoing maintenance – you will need to constantly monitor and fine-tune security policies to ensure protection.
• Non-holistic – none of the cloud providers offers a complete, holistic security solution. Some aspects of your cloud environment will remain insecure unless you identify security holes and securely configure systems or add other, third-party tools.
• False sense of security – many organizations feel that “the cloud is secure,” knowing that organizations like AWS have extensive security capabilities, especially if they are already using the cloud provider’s security tools. However, there may be multiple resources, systems, or applications outside the scope of the cloud provider’s tools. 

Cloud-Native Cecurity vs. Third-Party Cecurity: How to Choose?

When designing your security strategy, you should consider the following questions.

What do you require for on-premises security?

Some cloud-native security services — including Azure Advanced Threat Protection and Amazon GuardDuty — can be used to mitigate security risks for both cloud-based and on-site infrastructure. However, other services function solely in the cloud. 

For example, you can’t employ the native encryption attributes of a cloud-based information security service to encrypt on-site information. Cloud-based firewall services may be employed to safeguard on-site applications, but only if you establish a relatively expensive and complex architecture to integrate the applications with cloud firewall solutions.  

For this reason, organizations that experience a large presence on-site and in the public cloud should ideally use third-party options. In this situation, public cloud-native security features are not sufficient — third-party providers offer more uniformity when safeguarding both on-site and cloud-based resources. 

Does your organization have a multicloud strategy?

Organizations with a multicloud approach should also select third-party security tools. Native security features from one cloud vendor are not typically created to function with those on the public clouds of competitors.  

In some instances, it could be possible to create intricate manual integrations, allowing an IT team to ingest security-related information from one cloud into a security service on a different cloud. However, this creates more difficulties. Rather, choose a third-party tool that integrates with information or services via various cloud vendors simultaneously. 

How will your cloud security requirements grow and scale?

You will also need to think about the extent of your cloud security requirements, and how you believe they will develop over time. 

If you have only a couple of workloads performing in the cloud and don’t believe that this will change in the near future, it could be worthwhile to secure them just with your cloud vendor’s security tools. Often, this method is quicker to implement because the security features are natively integrated with the cloud services. 

If you anticipate that your cloud footprint will develop predictability, or you require the flexibility to migrate to different clouds to move workloads back on-site, a third-party security provider will provide better agility.

Exabeam: Enhancing Threat Detection with Advanced Security Analytics

The Exabeam Security Operations Platform delivers a powerful combination of SIEM, behavioral analytics, automation, and network visibility to transform how organizations detect, investigate, and respond to threats. By correlating firewall logs with data from endpoints, cloud environments, identity systems, and other security sources, Exabeam provides deeper insights into evolving threats that would otherwise go undetected.

Behavior-driven analytics enable Exabeam to go beyond static rules and signatures, identifying anomalous activity that indicates credential misuse, insider threats, or lateral movement across the network. By analyzing normal user and entity behavior over time, Exabeam surfaces high-risk activities that traditional security tools may overlook.

Automated investigations streamline security operations by linking disparate data points into comprehensive threat timelines, reducing the time analysts spend piecing together incidents manually. This allows teams to quickly identify the root cause of an attack and respond with precision.

Learn more about Exabeam SIEM