Definition
Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) is a category of cybersecurity tools and practices designed to continuously assess, detect, and remediate misconfigurations and compliance risks within cloud environments. These solutions automate the identification of security vulnerabilities by comparing cloud resource configurations against established security best practices and regulatory frameworks. CSPM is crucial for maintaining a strong security posture, preventing breaches, and ensuring compliance in dynamic cloud infrastructures. For instance, a CSPM tool might alert an administrator to an unsecured Amazon S3 bucket that is publicly accessible. This differs from cloud workload protection platforms (CWPPs) which focus on securing the applications and workloads running within the cloud, rather than the cloud infrastructure itself. CSPM concepts are frequently tested on certifications like the AWS Certified Security Specialty and CompTIA Security+.