Securing your cloud, from SaaS to IaaS  

With 84% of UK organisations spreading workloads across datacentres, multiple clouds and edge environments, the days of simple cloud adoption are long gone. Today, UK enterprises are projected to use multiple public clouds at rates of 46% within three years—quite a way above global benchmarks.

But there’s something we shouldn’t overlook: while we’re great at adopting cloud services, many companies are still playing catch-up when it comes to securing them. Below, we’ll highlight potential vulnerabilities in your cloud estate and what you can do about them. We’ll show you the most effective ways to keep your data safe and your business ticking over.

What’s in your cloud stack? 

Before we dive into the security toolkit, let’s clarify what we’re actually protecting. You have three layers of cloud service that needs protecting, each with its own level of complexity.

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) sits at the foundation. These are your virtual machines, storage systems and networks – Azure VMs, AWS EC2, Google Compute Engine, and so on. You control the operating systems, applications and data, but the physical infrastructure belongs to someone else. IaaS is experiencing the highest growth rate at 25.6% year-over-year, driven largely by organisations building AI capabilities.

Platform as a Service (PaaS) provides the development and deployment environment. Think Azure App Service, AWS Elastic Beanstalk, or Google App Engine. You bring the code, they handle everything else. It’s growing at 20% annually as more organisations embrace cloud-native development.

Software as a Service (SaaS) – the applications your teams use daily. Microsoft 365, Salesforce, Slack, and hundreds more. SaaS makes up 66% of the cloud market, and it’s where most of your shadow IT lives.

Each layer takes a different security approach because you control different pieces of the puzzle. With IaaS, you’re responsible for nearly everything above the hypervisor. With SaaS, you’re mainly worried about data and access controls.

Why cyber criminals love your cloud 

For malicious actors, your cloud environments are attractive targets. Not because cloud providers are insecure – they’re not – but because we humans have a weakness for occasionally leaving doors open.

The primary culprit is misconfigurations. A storage bucket left public here, an overly permissive security group there. These aren’t particularly clever attacks; they’re digital lockpickers walking through doors we forgot to lock.

Then there’s the visibility challenge. With 85% of organisations moving apps across cloud platforms within a 12-month period (according to one UK survey), keeping track of what’s where becomes a full-time job. Each migration introduces potential security gaps. Each new service adds another attack surface.

Shadow IT makes the problem even trickier. Well-meaning teams can spin up services to solve immediate problems, bypassing IT oversight. Before you know it, critical data sits in ungoverned cloud apps that your security team doesn’t even know exist.

Your full-cloud security toolkit 

A better security posture will go a long way toward stopping ransomware and other threats from paralysing your business. Here are the major security methods to consider for keeping your entire cloud infrastructure safe.

CSPM: Your infrastructure guardian

Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) is a process of continuously monitoring your IaaS and PaaS environments for misconfigurations and compliance violations.

CSPM tools excel at catching the basics that cause breaches: storage buckets without encryption, databases exposed to the internet, or IAM policies that grant excessive permissions. They map your cloud infrastructure against security frameworks like CIS benchmarks and alert you when something drifts out of compliance.

But CSPM isn’t just about finding problems. Modern platforms prioritise risks based on actual exploitability and business impact. They’ll tell you which exposed database actually contains sensitive information versus one full of test data, for example.

SSPM: Taming the SaaS sprawl

SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) does for your SaaS estate what CSPM does for infrastructure. With millions of businesses across the UK and Europe using multiple SaaS products as part of their daily operations, visibility is getting ever more important.

To stay secure, you really need to see how your apps are configured across your whole portfolio.

SSPM platforms discover all SaaS applications in use (even the unauthorised shadow IT ones), assess their security settings, and monitor for risky user behaviour. They’ll flag when someone shares a document publicly in Google Drive or when OAuth tokens grant excessive permissions, for example. They can even highlight when former employees still have access to their accounts.

The real value in SSPM is how it helps you regain control over SaaS sprawl without becoming the department that always says “no”. You get visibility and governance while teams get to keep their productivity tools—as long as they stay safe and secure.

Unify your approach with CNAPP 

Cloud Native Application Protection Platform (CNAPP) is an all-encompassing approach to cloud security. Rather than juggling multiple point solutions, CNAPP can integrate CSPM, SSPM, and CWP (Cloud Workload Protection: securing the actual apps and services running in your cloud) into a unified platform.

This matters because your attack surface doesn’t respect the boundaries between tools. A vulnerability in your application code (detected by workload protection) combined with a misconfigured network policy (spotted by CSPM) creates a breach scenario that siloed tools might miss.

CNAPP platforms provide:

• Unified visibility across your entire cloud estate
• Consistent security policies across IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS
• Integrated threat detection that connects the dots between different risk signals
• Simplified operations through a single console

The shift to CNAPP helps consolidate tools, which can be convenient. But its real value is in showing your cloud security posture as an interconnected system, rather than isolated components.

Identity: The thread that connects it all 

In the cloud, identity is your perimeter. There are no network boundaries to hide behind. Every user, every service account, every API key is a potential entry point.

With 44% of UK organisations citing data sovereignty and privacy as a top decision driver when choosing cloud platforms, it’s clear that centralised identity management plays a big part in maintaining control.

This is where Single Sign-On (SSO) stands as a fundamental part of your security. If you consolidate authentication through SSO, there’s a host of security benefits that await you:

• Reduced attack surface: Instead of managing passwords across dozens of services, you secure one identity provider. That’s convenient, but also much easier to manage.
• Enhanced detection capabilities: When all authentication flows through SSO, you gain a greater visibility advantage. Unusual login patterns or suspicious privilege escalations become immediately apparent. Someone logging in from Peru, and then again from Japan an hour later, should be flagged as unusual.
• Simplified deprovisioning: When someone leaves your organisation, one action disables access everywhere. No more hunting through dozens of SaaS applications to revoke access.

But SSO alone isn’t enough. You need identity governance that spans your entire cloud estate—from the service accounts running your IaaS workloads to the OAuth integrations in your SaaS applications. Every identity needs lifecycle management, regular reviews, and principle of least privilege enforcement.

Why CNAPP matters more than ever 

So why should you care about implementing a CNAPP approach? Well, it can potentially spark a fundamental change in how you approach cloud security. A well-implemented CNAPP programme typically brings together several key capabilities:

• Continuous discovery and inventory across your entire cloud estate. You gain real-time visibility into what’s running where, who has access, and how services connect. No more Excel spreadsheets trying to track your cloud assets.
• Risk prioritisation that actually makes sense. Instead of drowning in thousands of alerts, CNAPP platforms correlate risks across different layers. For example, they can decide that a medium-severity vulnerability in a web-facing app matters more than a critical one in an isolated development environment.
• Automated compliance and governance that works at cloud speed. Policies get enforced consistently across all your cloud services, whether it’s ensuring encryption at rest or preventing public access to sensitive data stores.
• Integrated threat detection that connects the dots. When an identity compromise in your SaaS environment correlates with unusual activity in your IaaS infrastructure, you want systems that spot the connection.
• DevSecOps integration that shifts security left. Modern CNAPPs embed security controls directly into CI/CD pipelines, allowing devs to catch misconfigurations and vulnerabilities before they ever reach production. This means building security into development without slowing down deployment.
• Cloud-native workload protection that actually understands modern architectures. CNAPPs are built for the reality of containers, serverless functions, and microservices – not just traditional VMs. They understand that a Kubernetes cluster has different security needs than a legacy application lifted and shifted to the cloud.

The CNAPP approach is a flexible one. Some organisations start with basic asset discovery and gradually expand capabilities. Others go all-in with a comprehensive platform from day one.

With 56% of IT decision makers making infrastructure modernisation a top priority, there’s clearly an appetite for transformation – the question is finding the right pace for your organisation. If you’re scaling cloud infrastructure and it’s getting more complex by the day, your legacy security tools won’t cut it much longer—CNAPP is the way to go.

Your next moves 

The options might seem overwhelming, but securing your cloud is easier if your break it into steps (and it’s definitely worth doing). Here are practical moves you can take to start things off:

• Audit your current visibility: Run a discovery scan to identify all cloud services in use. The results might surprise you.
• Pick your battles: Focus on your highest-risk services first – those handling sensitive data or critical business processes.
• Build the business case: Some level of security investment is a must. Frame it as business enablement, not just risk reduction.
• Consider your approach: Whether you build internal capabilities or partner with specialists, make sure you have both the technology and expertise available to secure your cloud journey.

The shift to cloud-smart operations demands equally smart security. With the right combination of visibility, tooling, and expertise, you can illuminate those blind spots and protect what matters most.

Looking for a practical roadmap for comprehensive cloud protection? Get in touch with the Two Four Secure team today to find out what’ll work best for you.