If you work in networking or security, you have probably gotten used to the acronym stew that makes up the technology industry at times. By now you have surely heard the latest buzzword and what industry analysts have coined as security service edge (SSE). SSE is essentially the consolidation of Firewall-as-a-Service (FWaaS), secure web gateway (SWG), cloud access security broker, and Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) delivered as a cloud service.

In January 2022, Microsoft announced that Excel 4.0 macros will be restricted by default, as a measure to protect customers against malware based on XLM 4.0 macros. As a more aggressive measure, on February 07, 2022, Microsoft announced that they will start blocking VBA macros for files downloaded from the internet.

Continuing with our security-first approach to Kubernetes data protection, in addition to Kubernetes Security Posture Reviews to scan your environment for vulnerabilities and misconfigurations, CloudCasa also added Cloud Security Posture Management for Amazon Web Services (AWS). Most attacks on cloud are the result of misconfigurations and mistakes, per industry analyst, Gartner. The research firm went on to forecast that through 2025, 99% of such attacks would be the customer’s fault.

Migrating to the cloud has allowed many organizations to reduce costs, innovate faster and deliver business results more effectively. However, as businesses expand their cloud investments, they must adapt their security strategies to stay one step ahead of threats that target their expanded environment. Managing, securing and having visibility across endpoints, networks and workloads is not an easy feat. It requires a unified defense-in-depth approach.

The “agents or no agents” debate is ancient and eternal. Every decade or so, we go through another round of “agents are terrible, let’s end them” and “we need more visibility and control to secure the system, maybe we’ll call it a ‘sensor’ this time.” We ultimately always land on the same conclusion. There are no silver bullets. Today, the debate is alive and well because cloud is the new frontier, so surely agents are dead this time?

S3 buckets without encryption can leave sensitive data exposed and at risk. As a best practice and to meet a number of industry and governmental regulations, it’s important to ensure that S3 server side bucket encryption has been properly applied at all times. To do this, many security teams rely on their Cloud Posture Security Management (CSPM) platform and/or AWS GuardDuty to monitor their AWS resources and provide alerts when an S3 bucket is found unencrypted.