We’re excited to announce that Kivera, a cloud security, data protection, and compliance company, has joined Cloudflare. This acquisition extends our SASE portfolio to incorporate inline cloud app controls, empowering Cloudflare One customers with preventative security controls for all their cloud services.

In today’s digital landscape, cloud services and SaaS (software as a service) apps have become indispensable for the daily operation of organizations. At the same time, the amount of data flowing between organizations and their cloud providers has ballooned, increasing the chances of data leakage, compliance issues, and worse, opportunities for attackers. Additionally, many companies — especially at enterprise scale — are working directly with multiple cloud providers for flexibility based on the strengths, resiliency against outages or errors, and cost efficiencies of different clouds. 

Security teams that rely on Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) or similar tools for monitoring cloud configurations and permissions and Infrastructure as code (IaC) scanning are falling short due to detecting issues only after misconfigurations occur with an overwhelming volume of alerts. The combination of Kivera and Cloudflare One puts preventive controls directly into the deployment process, or ‘inline’, blocking errors before they happen. This offers a proactive approach essential to protecting cloud infrastructure from evolving cyber threats, maintaining data security, and accelerating compliance. 

An early warning system for cloud security risks 

In a significant leap forward in cloud security, the combination of Kivera’s technology and Cloudflare One adds preventive, inline controls to enforce secure configurations for cloud resources. By inspecting cloud API traffic, these new capabilities equip organizations with enhanced visibility and granular controls, allowing for a proactive approach in mitigating risks, managing cloud security posture, and embracing a streamlined DevOps process when deploying cloud infrastructure.

Kivera will add the following capabilities to Cloudflare’s SASE platform:

• One-click security: Customers benefit from immediate prevention of the most common cloud breaches caused by misconfigurations, such as accidentally allowing public access or policy inconsistencies.

• Enforced cloud tenant control: Companies can easily draw boundaries around their cloud resources and tenants to ensure that sensitive data stays within their organization. 

• Prevent data exfiltration: Easily set rules to prevent data being sent to unauthorized locations.

• Reduce ‘shadow’ cloud infrastructure: Ensure that every interaction between a customer and their cloud provider is in line with preset standards. 

• Streamline cloud security compliance: Customers can automatically assess and enforce compliance against the most common regulatory frameworks.

• Flexible DevOps model: Enforce bespoke controls independent of public cloud setup and deployment tools, minimizing the layers of lock-in between an organization and a cloud provider.

• Complementing other cloud security tools: Create a first line of defense for cloud deployment errors, reducing the volume of alerts for customers also using CSPM tools or Cloud Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPPs). 

_{An intelligent proxy that uses a policy-based approach to enforce secure configuration of cloud resources.}

Better together with Cloudflare One

As a SASE platform, Cloudflare One ensures safe access and provides data controls for cloud and SaaS apps. This integration broadens the scope of Cloudflare’s SASE platform beyond user-facing applications to incorporate increased cloud security through proactive configuration management of infrastructure services, beyond what CSPM and CASB solutions provide. With the addition of Kivera to Cloudflare One, customers now have a unified platform for all their inline protections, including cloud control, access management, and threat and data protection. All of these features are available with single-pass inspection, which is 50% faster than Secure Web Gateway (SWG) alternatives.  

With the earlier acquisition of BastionZero, a Zero Trust infrastructure access company, Cloudflare One expanded the scope of its VPN replacement solution to cover infrastructure resources as easily as it does apps and networks. Together Kivera and BastionZero enable centralized security management across hybrid IT environments, and provide a modern DevOps-friendly way to help enterprises connect and protect their hybrid infrastructure with Zero Trust best practices.

Beyond its SASE capabilities, Cloudflare One is integral to Cloudflare’s connectivity cloud, enabling organizations to consolidate IT security tools on a single platform. This simplifies secure access to resources, from developer privileged access to technical infrastructure and expanding cloud services. As Forrester echoes, “Cloudflare is a good choice for enterprise prospects seeking a high-performance, low-maintenance, DevOps-oriented solution.”

The growing threat of cloud misconfigurations

The cloud has become a prime target for cyberattacks. According to the 2023 Cloud Risk Report, CrowdStrike observed a 95% increase in cloud exploitation from 2021 to 2022, with a staggering 288% jump in cases involving threat actors directly targeting the cloud.

Misconfigurations in cloud infrastructure settings, such as improperly set security parameters and default access controls, provide adversaries with an easy path to infiltrate the cloud. According to the 2023 Thales Global Cloud Security Study, which surveyed nearly 3,000 IT and security professionals from 18 countries, 44% of respondents reported experiencing a data breach, with misconfigurations and human error identified as the leading cause, accounting for 31% of the incidents.

Further, according to Gartner^Ⓡ, “Through 2027, 99% of records compromised in cloud environments will be the result of user misconfigurations and account compromise, not the result of an issue with the cloud provider.”¹

Several factors contribute to the rise of cloud misconfigurations:

• Rapid adoption of cloud services: Leaders are often driven by the scalability, cost-efficiency, and ability to support remote work and real-time collaboration that cloud services offer. These factors enable rapid adoption of cloud services which can lead to unintentional misconfigurations as IT teams struggle to keep up with the pace and complexity of these services. 

• Complexity of cloud environments: Cloud infrastructure can be highly complex with multiple services and configurations to manage. For example, AWS alone offers 373 services with 15,617 actions and 140,000+ parameters, making it challenging for IT teams to manage settings accurately. 

• Decentralized management: In large organizations, cloud infrastructure resources are often managed by multiple teams or departments. Without centralized oversight, inconsistent security policies and configurations can arise, increasing the risk of misconfigurations.

• Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD): CI/CD pipelines promote the ability to rapidly deploy, change and frequently update infrastructure. With this velocity comes the increased risk of misconfigurations when changes are not properly managed and reviewed.

• Insufficient training and awareness: Employees may lack the cross-functional skills needed for cloud security, such as understanding networks, identity, and service configurations. This knowledge gap can lead to mistakes and increases the risk of misconfigurations that compromise security.

Common exploitation methods 

Threat actors exploit cloud services through various means, including targeting misconfigurations, abusing privileges, and bypassing encryption. Misconfigurations such as exposed storage buckets or improperly secured APIs offer attackers easy access to sensitive data and resources. Privilege abuse occurs when attackers gain unauthorized access through compromised credentials or poorly managed identity and access management (IAM) policies, allowing them to escalate their access and move laterally within the cloud environment. Additionally, unencrypted data enables attackers to intercept and decrypt data in transit or at rest, further compromising the integrity and confidentiality of sensitive information.

Here are some other vulnerabilities that organizations should address: 

• Unrestricted access to cloud tenants: Allowing unrestricted access exposes cloud platforms to data exfiltration by malicious actors. Limiting access to approved tenants with specific IP addresses and service destinations helps prevent unauthorized access.

• Exposed access keys: Exposed access keys can be exploited by unauthorized parties to steal or delete data. Requiring encryption for the access keys and restricting their usage can mitigate this risk.

• Excessive account permissions: Granting excessive privileges to cloud accounts increases the potential impact of security breaches. Limiting permissions to necessary operations helps prevent lateral movement and privilege escalation by threat actors.

• Inadequate network segmentation: Poorly managed network security groups and insufficient segmentation practices can allow attackers to move freely within cloud environments. Drawing boundaries around your cloud resources and tenants ensures that data stays within your organization.

• Improper public access configuration: Incorrectly exposing critical services or storage resources to the internet increases the likelihood of unauthorized access and data compromise. Preventing public access drastically reduces risk.

• Shadow cloud infrastructure: Abandoned or neglected cloud instances are often left vulnerable to exploitation, providing attackers with opportunities to access sensitive data left behind. Preventing untagged or unapproved cloud resources to be created can reduce the risk of exposure.

Many organizations turn to CSPM tools to give them more visibility into cloud misconfigurations. These tools often alert teams after an issue occurs, putting security teams in a reactive mode. Remediation efforts require collaboration between security teams and developers to implement changes, which can be time-consuming and resource-intensive. This approach not only delays issue resolution but also exposes companies to compliance and legal risks, while failing to train employees on secure cloud practices. On average, it takes 207 days to identify these breaches and an additional 70 days to contain them. 

Addressing the growing threat of cloud misconfigurations requires proactive security measures and continuous monitoring. Organizations must adopt proactive security solutions that not only detect and alert but also prevent misconfigurations from occuring in the first place and enforce best practices. Creating a first line of defense for cloud deployment errors reduces the volume of alerts for customers, especially those also using CSPM tools or CNAPPs. 

By implementing these proactive strategies, organizations can safeguard their cloud environments against the evolving landscape of cyber threats, ensuring robust security and compliance while minimizing risks and operational disruptions.

What’s next for Kivera

The Kivera product will not be a point solution add-on. We’re making it a core part of our Cloudflare One offering because integrating features from products like our Secure Web Gateway give customers a comprehensive solution that works better together.

We’re excited to welcome Kivera to the Cloudflare team. Through the end of 2024 and into early 2025, Kivera’s team will focus on integrating their preventive inline cloud app controls directly into Cloudflare One. We are looking for early access testers and teams to provide feedback about what they would like to see. If you’d like early access, please join the waitlist.

_{[1] Source: Outcome-Driven Metrics You Can Use to Evaluate Cloud Security Controls, Gartner, Charlie Winckless, Paul Proctor, Manuel Acosta, 09/28/2023} 

_{GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved.}