Leading the way in machine identity management, Venafi has published a new study titled ‘The Impact of Machine Identities on the State of Cloud Native Security in 2023.’ This paper explores the threats and difficulties that cloud native security in enterprises is currently facing. It covers a number of topics, including cloud native security strategies, difficulties, the separation of duties between development and security teams, and the critical role that machine identities play in cloud security.

Cloud native technologies like Kubernetes are being quickly adopted by enterprises in an effort to stay competitive. According to 84% of IT and security executives, Kubernetes will soon overtake other platforms as the key tool for developing applications, stated Venafi in its report. Nevertheless, this quick change would sometimes be paired with a disregard for security precautions, providing opportunities for hackers. According to Venafi’s survey, 75% of participants anticipate an impending cloud security and cost catastrophe.

Venafi’s Vice President of Ecosystem and Community, Kevin Bocek, stresses the need of striking a balance between speed and security. In cloud settings, he points out, where there is no physical barrier and no emergency ‘off switch,’ machine identity management is the cornerstone of security. This includes code signing certificates, TLS, and SPIFFE, which are essential for authorizing and authenticating various cloud components. According to the poll, firms are generally ill-prepared for the dangers and expectations of contemporary cloud systems.

Aitional findings from Venafi’s study point to a number of worrying areas:

Cloud Native Security and Kubernetes Confusing – Many businesses are moving their legacy applications to the cloud without fully realizing the security ramifications. Of security and IT executives, 59% acknowledge that they were not aware of the hazards and that they had encountered security problems while using Kubernetes or container systems. Network breaches, API vulnerabilities, and certificate misconfigurations have been identified as typical causes of these difficulties, which have resulted in delayed application launches and interruptions in services.

Ambiguous Responsibility for Cloud Native Security – It’s not apparent who is in charge of overseeing cloud native security governance and risks. Platform, development, and security teams take turns implementing security tools and procedures, but 85% of security teams define the approach. This split often results in developers who are juggling several responsibilities not prioritizing security. Ninety percent of those surveyed think that in order to guarantee application security, security teams must have a better grasp of cloud native settings.

The Function of Machine Identity Management – Handling machine IDs is seen to be one way to resolve the issue of speed vs security. Software supply chain assaults are seen by 70% of respondents as their worst security blind spot, and 85% of them believe that ongoing security validation throughout the CI/CD pipeline is essential. But 61% admit that they can’t provide certificates fast enough for setups using service mesh and Kubernetes. Of those surveyed, 88% agree that machine identity management is essential to the success of zero trust models.

The conclusions of Venafi‘s analysis would highlight the need of managing machine identities more effectively to overcome the difficulties associated with cloud native security. In order to safeguard their digital assets efficiently, companies would need to give top priority to a thorough knowledge and use of security policies as the cloud environment continues to change.

Venafi’s study ‘The Impact of Machine Identities on the State of Cloud Native Security in 2023’ can be found here.