Azure’s cloud security posture management also protects AWS workloads
Microsoft this week announced it has added Google Cloud Platform (GCP) support to Defender for Cloud. Defender for Cloud is an Azure-based Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) service that helps businesses understand and manage threats in the cloud.
Using Microsoft Defender for Cloud, corporate IT users can visualize the security conditions across their connected cloud environments from a single interface. The service helps IT departments manage compliance, detect vulnerabilities, and enables threat protection for workloads running in public cloud services and on premises.
Microsoft acknowledged that 92% of companies embrace a multi-cloud strategy, but many struggle with multi-cloud complexity too. The addition of Google Cloud support for Defender helps businesses add native CSPM and Cloud Workload Protection (CWP) capabilities without dependency on Google first-party tools.
Microsoft’s Gilad Elyashar revealed the GC news in a new blog post. He said that the support for GCP comes with a simplified onboarding experience, more than 80 out-of-the-box recommendations to harden your environment, and other features. Microsoft rolled out similar support for customers with Amazon Web Services (AWS) workloads last September.
Elyashar emphasized new threat protection capabilities enabled in Microsoft Defender for Cloud, developed to manage native Google Cloud workloads across both containers and services.
Defender for Cloud adds Google Cloud security enhancements
Microsoft Defender for Cloud sports new container protection protocols for Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) Standard clusters, for example, comprising data analytics and policy-driven security to help keep Kubernetes payloads safe.
“With container adoption soaring because of their scalability and portability, they are critical in any cloud environment,” he added.
“Microsoft Defender for Containers provides threat detection capabilities that include Kubernetes behavioral analytics, including anomaly detection for GKE clusters and underlying hosts, as well as security best practices and built-in admission control policies to harden Kubernetes workloads,” he said.
Defender uses native Google APIs to enable CSPM. The service will soon allow security teams to connect the entire organization or individual projects to Microsoft Defender for Cloud without the need for any agents or additional Google services, said Elyashar.
Defender for Cloud also supports Google Compute Engine virtual machines (VMs).
“The protection for server workloads leverages the powerful protection capabilities of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint such as EDR and attack surface reduction. In addition, it provides server-focused vulnerability assessment, behavioral alerts for VMs, OS recommendations across security baselines, anti malware, and missing OS updates, as well as Adaptive application controls (AAC) and File integrity monitoring (FIM),” said Elyashar.
