Cloud computing has become the operational backbone of modern business. Every new workload, API and identity migrated to the cloud accelerates innovation—yet each one also widens the attack surface. CrowdStrike Cloud Security delivers an end-to-end approach that merges complete visibility, threat prevention and rapid response across AWS, Azure, Google Cloud and beyond. In the next few minutes you’ll discover
the five most pressing cloud-security challenges for 2025,
how CrowdStrike’s converged Cloud-Native Application Protection Platform (CNAPP) neutralises them,
a real-world scenario that puts numbers behind the claims, and
a five-step checklist you can apply right away.
A single overly permissive IAM policy or public storage bucket can expose millions of records. With thousands of resources, dozens of accounts and countless entitlements, manual review is impossible.
Micro-services, serverless functions and SaaS plug-ins deliver agility and risk. Traditional, agent-centric controls rarely cover every ephemeral workload.
“Shift left” shortens release cycles, but when security testing lags behind the pipeline, unvetted code races into production—or deployments stall while developers wait for feedback.
Adversaries now specialise in cloud-native tactics: harvesting credentials from metadata services, escalating privileges via mis-scoped roles and abusing provider APIs for cross-account traversal.
Frameworks such as GDPR, PCI-DSS and HIPAA demand verifiable evidence of security controls. Gathering proof across auto-scaling infrastructure by hand drains team capacity and invites audit gaps.
At a glance: one AI-driven CNAPP fuses Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM), Application Security Posture Management (ASPM) and Cloud Workload Protection (CWPP), delivering context-rich insight from source code to runtime—without blind spots.
Continuous asset inventory flags misconfigurations. Pipeline scans catch vulnerable code and infrastructure-as-code templates before they ship. Runtime sensors instrument live workloads—so a flaw spotted in the build stage is automatically linked to its running container moments later.
Machine-learning models correlate vulnerabilities, misconfigurations and active threat signals with business context (exposure level, data sensitivity, blast radius). Security teams see critical issues first and can slash mean time to remediate (MTTR).
Whether Linux VMs, Kubernetes clusters or serverless functions, Falcon sensors and agentless connectors stream telemetry in real time and block exploits on the spot. Updated threat intelligence feeds ensure detections stay current.
Integration with CrowdStrike Identity Threat Protection enforces context-based verification on every request. Least-privilege policies remain intact even as roles and identities change minute by minute.
Pre-built policies for GDPR, PCI-DSS, HIPAA, ISO 27001 and more map directly onto each cloud provider’s APIs. Continuous assessment and exportable PDF reports turn audit season from a three-week scramble into a few clicks.
RhineData Financial runs critical payment services on AWS and Azure. A routine penetration test uncovered
4 000 publicly accessible S3 buckets,
hundreds of stale access keys, and
outdated container images in its registry.
Remediation with CrowdStrike Cloud Security
On-boarding – Both clouds connected via API keys in under 30 minutes; no agents, no downtime.
Asset Discovery – CSPM logged 54 931 assets and assigned risk scores instantly.
Bulk Fixes – All open buckets were restricted; IAM users were forced to MFA with a single click.
Image Hardening – CWPP policy blocked deployment of unpatched images; the pipeline now fails fast when CVEs exceed a defined threshold.
Outcome – MTTR dropped from 12 days to 3 hours. Audit findings fell by 87 percent, saving an estimated €240 000 in potential fines and incident costs.
| # | Action | Why It Matters |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Build a full cloud inventory and enforce a consistent tagging strategy. | Clear ownership and faster governance reporting. |
| 2 | Deploy Falcon sensors and agentless connectors across every account and region. | End-to-end telemetry and immediate threat blocking. |
| 3 | Embed ASPM checks in your CI/CD pipeline. | Shift-left security reduces hotfixes and rework. |
| 4 | Draft and enforce a Zero-Trust policy for every identity. | Stops lateral movement—even if one credential is stolen. |
| 5 | Schedule quarterly red-team and purple-team exercises. | Validates detection logic and ensures your response runbooks work under pressure. |
Follow these steps and your secure-cloud architecture evolves from static snapshots into a living, self-healing defence system.
The cloud powers digital transformation, but unmanaged it can become a liability. CrowdStrike Cloud Security unifies CSPM, ASPM, CWPP and Zero-Trust into a single, intelligence-driven platform that neutralises misconfigurations, vulnerable code, runtime attacks and compliance overhead. Organisations adopting this approach achieve faster releases, lower risk and measurable cost savings.
Ready to see it in action? Start a free 15-day trial or use the ROI calculator to project financial impact on your own environment—because the fastest way to unlock a secure cloud is to let proactive protection scale with you.