Microsoft Announces Multicloud Security Capabilities

Native capabilities of Microsoft Defender for Cloud now extended to the Google Cloud Platform (GCP), in addition to Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services

FREMONT, CA: Microsoft has introduced new security solutions to enable customers to improve visibility and control across different cloud providers, workloads, devices, and digital identities – all from a single management console. Among them is the extension of native capabilities of Microsoft Defender for Cloud to Google Cloud Platform (GCP), the release of a public preview of CloudKnox Permissions Management, and new security data analysis capabilities on Microsoft Sentinel.

Businesses are adapting and transforming as a result of the adoption of cloud, mobile, and edge platforms, which has resulted in greater security concerns. According to Flexera's State of the Cloud Report for 2021, 92 percent of respondents use a multi-cloud approach, which means they use apps and infrastructure from several cloud providers. Another recent Microsoft-sponsored poll found that 73 percent of respondents believe managing multi-cloud settings is difficult. It's critical for businesses to properly embrace multi-cloud strategies that their security solutions decrease complexity and provide comprehensive protection.

As businesses adopt multi-cloud strategies, their security solutions must simplify the process while also allowing them to increase overall security postures - all from a single location. Microsoft will extend the native features of Microsoft Defender for Cloud to the GCP to solve this. This is yet another step in the company's quest to secure its clients across a variety of cloud platforms. Microsoft is now the only cloud provider that offers

native multi-cloud protection for the industry's top three platforms: Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and GCP, which was unveiled at Ignite in November 2021.

This support for GCP includes out-of-the-box suggestions for configuring GCP environments under major security standards, such as the Center for Internet Security benchmark, as well as protection for crucial workloads operating on GCP. This would enable enterprises to manage their security across clouds in a centralised and natural manner.

Microsoft also revealed new ways for security teams to use Microsoft Sentinel to access and analyse security data as they protect against ever-evolving cyber threats. By embracing all data types, wherever they live and providing the most comprehensive threat hunting solution, this will revolutionise the economics of dealing with security information and event management data, as well as deliver new methods to access and analyse security data.