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Demystifying Cisco Panoptica: A Closer Look at Cloud Security Solutions

August 04, 2023 ,

Demystifying Cisco Panoptica: A Closer Look at Cloud Security Solutions

Cisco Panoptica is a cloud application security solution that aids in the protection of contemporary applications from code to cloud. It enables visibility and repair for Kubernetes-managed containerized apps, serverless operations, and all of your APIs.

Panoptica connects with your existing tools and processes to scan your code and configurations for vulnerabilities and misconfigurations, such as CI/CD pipelines, code repositories, and cloud platforms. It also monitors your runtime environment for abnormalities and threats, and provides automatic remediation measures to help you deal with them.

Cisco Panoptica
Fig 1.1- Dashboard Cisco Panoptica

Panoptica leverages Cisco’s threat intelligence and machine learning capabilities to provide you with actionable insights and recommendations to improve your security posture. It also provides a unified dashboard and reporting system that shows you the security status of your applications across clusters and multi-cloud environments.

Panoptica is designed to be scalable, flexible, and easy to use. You can deploy Panoptica as a SaaS solution or as a self-managed solution on your own infrastructure. You can also customize Panoptica with add-ons such as AppDynamics, SecureX, Duo, and more.

How does Panoptica compare to other cloud security solutions?

There are several cloud security solutions on the market, each with its own set of advantages and disadvantages. It is difficult to directly compare them because they may have different features, price, and target audiences. However, based on what I saw on the internet, here are some basic aspects to consider while assessing cloud security solutions:

You may want to select a cloud security solution that provides a variety of features to fulfil your varied cloud demands, such as compliance, threat prevention, workload protection, data security, and more. This can assist you in reducing the complexity and costs associated with managing many providers and products.

Support for numerous cloud platforms: You may want to select a cloud security solution that can support your multi-cloud or hybrid cloud strategy by providing consistent visibility and management across various cloud environments such as AWS, Azure, GCP, and others.

You should look for a cloud security solution that can function in tandem with your existing tools and processes, such as CI/CD pipelines, code repositories, cloud platforms, and other security solutions. This can assist you in automating and streamlining your security operations, as well as increasing your efficiency and production.

You might want to pick a cloud security solution that can give you useful insights and suggestions to strengthen your security posture based on data analysis, threat intelligence, machine learning, and best practices. This can assist you in identifying and prioritizing your risks and weaknesses so that you can take fast and efficient corrective action.

What are some common cloud security challenges?

Misconfiguration of the security system: This is the wrong or incomplete configuration of security measures, including firewalls, encryption, access restrictions, and others. Misconfiguration leaves the cloud environment vulnerable to cyberattacks, data leaks, and unauthorized access. Trend Micro reports that the most common reason for cloud security problems is misconfiguration.

DoS (denial-of-service) assaults: This describes a malicious effort to sabotage a cloud service or application's performance or availability by barrage it with traffic or requests. DoS attacks may result in service interruptions, financial losses, or reputational harm. DoS attacks are one of the top five cloud computing security issues, according to a survey by EC-Council.

Cyberattack-related data loss: This occurs when bad actors steal, obliterate, or corrupt data that is stored in the cloud. The confidentiality, integrity, or availability of the data may be jeopardized by a data loss, which may have negative legal, financial, or reputational repercussions.

Unsecure access management: This describes the absence of appropriate systems for user and device authentication, authorization, and auditing while accessing cloud services and data. Unauthorized access, privilege escalation, or identity theft can occur as a result of insecure access control. 

How do I choose the right cloud security solution for my business?

Determine your present and upcoming cloud security concerns, including those related to compliance standards, the threat environment, different types of workloads, the sensitivity of your data, cloud platforms, and more. Determine your cloud security priorities and goals, such as risk mitigation, cost-effectiveness, and performance enhancement.

Based on your requirements and objectives, you should contrast the features, advantages, and disadvantages of the different cloud security solutions. Consider the providers' support, reputation, and cost as well. To aid with your evaluation, you might use web resources including case studies, reviews, ratings, testimonials, and demos.

The cloud security solution that satisfies your requirements and expectations should be tested thoroughly. To evaluate the solution in your own environment, you can ask the vendor for a free trial or a proof of concept. Additionally, you ought to ask your stakeholders—including business executives, security teams, and development teams—for their opinions. The next step is to choose the cloud security solution that offers the most value for your company.

How Cisco Panoptica helps as cloud security solution ?

Cisco Panoptica is a cloud application security solution that aids in the security of your code-to-cloud journey. It enables you to protect APIs, serverless, containers, and Kubernetes environments by providing seamless scalability across clusters and multi-cloud settings. It discovers errors and vulnerabilities sooner in the development process, speeds up cleanup, and provides consistent and ongoing security and compliance monitoring.

It employs a new Attack Path Engine, which analyses the attack surface and attack vectors of your cloud native apps and gives actionable insights and suggestions to help you avoid breaches. To decrease friction and complexity, it connects with your existing tools and workflows, including as CI/CD pipelines, IDEs, code repositories, and cloud platforms.