11 Best CIEM Tools in 2024

Cloud services, in 2020, saw a 600% rise in cyberattacks on their services. Cloud misconfigurations, in the last few years, alone cost companies almost $5 trillion and led to the compromise of over 33 billion user records.

Organizations are shifting to the cloud in growing numbers, but this growth represents unanticipated security challenges unique to the cloud. Traditional security tools, unfortunately, are ill-equipped to manage this explosion of resource management, resulting in security risks that are exacerbated where cloud access risk runs rampant. These challenges beg for a new best practice — hint: it’s CIEM.

Manual methods to implement least-privilege are not scalable, wherein multi-cloud access is a blind spot for many, machine identities have no oversight in traditional tools, and so on. This has created a need for a new class of tools for Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM). 

In this blog, we explore the top 11 CIEM Solutions of 2023, exploring their benefits, features, and suitability for different organizational needs. 

What are CIEM tools?

Cloud infrastructure entitlement management tools or CIEM solutions help automate user permissions management—including establishing user accounts and permissions—across different cloud environments. They automatically monitor for suspicious, unusual, or malicious behavior and implement the appropriate remediation steps when any deviation from usual patterns is detected.

Security teams with CIEM solutions can manage cloud entitlements identities and implement the principle of least-privileged access to cloud infrastructure as well as cloud resources. CIEM solutions help organizations reduce their cloud attack surface while mitigating access risks posed by excessive permissions.

Why are CIEM tools required?

CIEM tools are required due to their wide range of benefits, from increased visibility across cloud infrastructures to mitigating disruption and fulfilling compliance requirements. CIEM solutions have become diversified, with many CIEM vendors now emerging to cater to the specific needs of every organization.

Some of the key benefits of deploying CIEM tools are:

Improved Productivity and Innovation

Whenever organizations introduce new workloads or applications, CIEM tools help manage issues stemming from excessive permissions. Advanced machine-learning technology helps identify potential vulnerabilities and tailor specific cybersecurity solutions to mitigate them. As a result, organizations can maximize productivity levels while minimizing disasters.

Automation

CIEM solutions automate user permissions management across various cloud environments, including defining user accounts and permissions. They automatically monitor for suspicious, unusual, or malicious behavior and take the appropriate remediation steps when anything different from the usual is detected. With the growing number of cyber threats, identifying attack patterns as well as responding swiftly is mission-critical.

Increased Visibility

CIEM solutions offer organizations enhanced visibility across their cloud infrastructures into resource access requests. This is critical to more effective permission management and fulfilling regulatory compliance requirements. 

Reduced Costs

CIEM offers complete visibility into application usage. These insights enable security teams to make better-informed decisions about cloud subscription management, capacity requirements, or upgrading to new cloud environments—essentially utilizing the cloud computing resources in a more cost-effective manner. 

Business Continuity

With CIEM monitoring the entire organization’s infrastructure for entitlement and access anomalies, organizations are able to address security gaps and avoid business disruptions.

Clear User Roles

CIEM tools assign discrete user roles, such as  IT managers and system administrators. This way, IT teams can:

• Cloud resource consumption can be monitored in a better way.
• Ensure user access is in alignment with organizational policies.
• In scenarios where requests exceed permissions, restrict user access.

11 Best CIEM tools in 2024

CIEM tools are the need of the hour for organizations looking for increased visibility, enforcing user permissions and access controls, ensuring business continuity, and overall improved productivity by leveraging the power of automation.

Here is the list of the top 11 CIEM solutions in 2023:

Sprinto

Sprinto is a powerful security and compliance automation platform with Cloud infrastructure entitlement management and role-based access to proactively control and define segregated duties and their access. It seamlessly integrates with cloud infrastructure to provide integrated risk assessment for scoping risks and identifying gaps while implementing control measures to address these issues across the org, at scale and entity level– all in real-time, all from a single dashboard. 

G2 has recognized Sprinto as a Leader in Security Compliance categories for four consecutive quarters, making it the first choice for organizations looking to strengthen their cybersecurity posture, automate compliance, or mitigate disasters.

Key features:

• Role-based access: Proactively control and define segregated duties to secure the operating environment

• Continuous control monitoring: Ensure continuous monitoring across your organization – at scale and right down to the entity level

• Maximum integrations– With over 100+ available integrations, Sprinto can seamlessly integrate with almost any modern-day cloud service.

• Vulnerability and Incident Management– Identify, analyze, mitigate, and document security incidents as well as vulnerabilities. Take prompt actions to generate proof of corrective measures aligned with audits across frameworks

• Analytics and Reporting: Get a comprehensive view as well as insights into your company’s security posture, all from a single dashboard, all in real-time, with Sprinto’s real-time reporting and analytics capabilities

• Systematic escalations-Sprinto splits up tasks in a rule-based, organized fashion to maintain the status quo while ensuring smooth remediation across team members, establishing a clear order of priority –failing, due, and critical

• Cloud expertise: Sprinto is specifically tailored to provide end-to-end security coverage while solving the security compliance needs of fast-growing cloud companies

• Expert-led implementation- Get expert guidance along every step of your cybersecurity journey with Sprinto

Advantages:

• Widest Compliance Coverage across frameworks like ISO 27001, SOC 2, HIPAA, and GDPR among others.

• Policy Enforcement to implement security controls at entity level and at scale

• Workflow Management to keeps tabs on workflows followed across org.

• Data Loss Prevention controls to ensure regular backups and availability of data in case of disaster.

• Modular security training programs for creating cybersecurity awareness among employees.

• Dr. Sprinto MDM to secure and manage end-point mobile devices.

• 100% async audit with automated evidence collection.

• Expert-led implementation with 24*7 support.

• Anomaly Detection and tiered remediation to address security gaps

Disadvantages:

• They are always upgrading their product to add new features, which can sometimes feel like a con to a few.

Adaptive Shield

Adaptive Shield is a popular security posture management software that alerts security teams about potential hazards in their SaaS environment and works to mitigate them.

With companies having thousands of employees using hundreds of apps, deep visibility, and remediation is crucial for SaaS security settings. By identifying and rectifying configuration flaws, Adaptive Shield helps security save time. Security specialists can utilize this solution to mitigate setup and privileges mistakes, ensuring that their organization conforms with industry requirements.

Key features:

• Access Control to ensure only authorized people have access to sensitive data.

• Spam Check to detect phishing attacks.

• Data leak detection capabilities with anomaly detection in real-time.

• Privacy Control to manage privacy risks and ensure compliance with applicable privacy requirements.

• Audit synced with evidence collection.

Advantages:

• Seamless user management and investigation process, which is particularly helpful for safeguarding critical users.

• Automated anomaly detection, policy enforcement, and continuous monitoring.

Disadvantages:

• It may require fine-tuning and configuration to align with specific organizational needs. 

• For users unfamiliar with the platform, it may have a steep learning curve.

• Pricing can get costly quickly, depending on the organization’s size and requirements.

PingSafe

PingSafe is a comprehensive cloud security tool that offers protection for businesses of all sizes and in all sectors. It aids in eliminating all risks as well as challenges, both known and unknown.

Key features:

• Configuration errors in the cloud are automatically addressed and patched. 

• Misconfigurations across lateral movement pathways, resources, and impact radius are displayed in graphs.

• Monitoring continuous cybersecurity posture of new or current cloud services. 

• Notifying of security defaults, and focusing on security concerns and recommended practices.

• Find the cloud resources/assets that have known CVEs to handle vulnerabilities. 

• Provides Threat Watch, a dashboard for monitoring any issues with the zero-day vulnerabilities.

• Bill of materials (BOM) reporting for security vulnerability testing and agentless applications for virtual machine snapshots.

Advantages:

• Very intuitive UI with ease of implementation

• Can integrate with Jira, PagerDuty, Slack, and more

• Lets customers create and implement custom security policies and frameworks

• Offers role-based access control, multi-tenancy support, and history tracking

Disadvantages:

• Initial learning curve for beginners

Also check: 15 Best Cybersecurity tools in 2024

Lookout

Lookout is a popular CIEM tool that helps cloud companies in mobile security and offers mobile threat defense solutions. It is designed to safeguard mobile devices, data, and apps from various security threats. It provides you with centralized dashboard to take a look at everything in one place and also helps you consolidate vendors for proper cloud security. 

Key features:

• Monitoring of personal information and financial accounts with proactive monitoring.

• This tool safeguards against threats to your mobile device against a wide range of threats.

Advantages:

• Mobile security solutions with robust mobile security solutions.

• Real-time threat detection and remediation to identify and address any threats promptly.

• Compliance assistance to help with compliance requirements.

Disadvantages:

• Lookout’s features are not as extensive as some of the other mobile security solutions. 

• The cost of subscriptions and licenses varies based on the organization’s requirements.

Netkskope

Netskope offers comprehensive security, visibility, and control over cloud applications, web traffic, and data. It offers a comprehensive set of security services tailored to protect against threats, secure data in the cloud, and enforce compliance policies. Netskope enables companies to safely adopt cloud services by providing real-time monitoring as well as control over cloud usage across multiple devices and locations. 

Key features:

• Gathers and summarizes data to deliver security insights across GCP, Azure, and AWS deployments

• Scans storage buckets in AWS (S3) and Azure blob containers for vulnerabilities.

• Identifies sensitive information, builds upon data loss prevention (DLP) profiles, and prevents malware attacks.

• Uncovers hidden CLI activities to provide inline visibility and implement controls powered by Cloud XD.

• Prevents shadow IT attacks and offers custom security policies across multiple cloud environments

Advantages:

• Data centers are present across 50+ regions globally

• IPsec tunneling and Generic Routing Encapsulation (GRE) for inline NGFW, CASB, and SWG capabilities

• Offers analytics as well as expands deployments to include sandboxing 

Disadvantages:

• Doesn’t offer protection for SD-WAN devices or software-defined WAN.

• Depends on third-party applications to expand deployment integrations.

CensorNet

CensorNet equips mid-market organizations with the oversight and assurance of enterprise-level cybersecurity. The Autonomous Security platform seamlessly integrates threat intelligence from web, email, and cloud environments, enabling defense and rapid response against cyber threats. In terms of intelligence, safety, and speed, its AI-driven, autonomous solution surpasses human capabilities. 

Key features:

• Web Security features help businesses secure their web browsing activities. 

• Multi-factor authentication (MFA) offers an extra layer of security. 

• Email Security features to protect companies against email-based threats.

Advantages:

• CensorNet offers robust email security and web solutions. 

• It offers comprehensive policy enforcement and content filtering capabilities.

Disadvantages:

• May result in a steeper learning curve. 

• CensorNet’s licenses and subscriptions may be costlier for smaller organizations.

CloudKnox

CloudKnox is a security tool dedicated to cloud services. Managing who can access what helps organizations make their cloud environments more secure. It focuses on providing real-time information and reducing unnecessary access. CloudKnox helps businesses improve their overall security posture and follow the rules.

Key features:

• Continuous Monitoring to share ongoing oversight of cloud usage and access rights across a number of cloud service providers.

• Access Remediation to reduce the attack surface and ensure the least privileged access.

• Integration with a range of cloud platforms as well as security software.

• Role-Based Access Control to implement policies to impose compliance and security requirements.

Advantages:

• Provides the least privileged access features and eliminates over-permissions

• Offers real-time monitoring of organization infrastructure, prompt threat detection, and reaction.

• Gives you visibility and control over access and rights to facilitate compliance 

Disadvantages:

• Implementing and configuring the software with other cloud architectures can be quite a challenge 

• It’s quite expensive for smaller companies or those with few cloud resources

Obsidian Security

Obsidian protection offers Software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications complete end-to-end protection. Posture hardening, integration risk management, and threat reduction are some of its solutions.

Key features:

• Accessible via API and UI, access, rich user, and activity data model

• Track privileged access as well as activity across applications in a single place.

• It can be deployed in minutes and is productive within hours

Advantages:

• Obsidian helps maintain total control over your data

• No account is required for Obsidian. 

• Obsidian cannot access your data as it is saved locally on your device.

• None of its apps collects telemetry data or sells user data.

Disadvantages:

• Several malicious URI processes can be chain spawned from a single compromised website.

• Malicious websites can corrupt and/or overwrite any other file type.

Microsoft Defender

Microsoft Defender provides integrated defense against complex assaults, with a unified pre- as well as post-breach enterprise defense package that natively coordinates detection, investigation, prevention, and response across endpoints, email, identities, and applications.

Key features:

• Management of security posture with continuous monitoring of systems, networks, and devices.

• Identity and access management to control who can access what.

• Threat detection and response to identify and address security gaps.

Advantages:

• Cloud-based protection with multiple integrations available.

• Real-time protection with continuous monitoring and response.

Disadvantages:

• Compatibility issues between Microsoft Defender and some third-party security programs.

• Limited Customizability

Wiz

Wiz is a CNAPP tool that helps your organization integrate CIEM, KSPM, CSPM, DSPM, CWPP, vulnerability scanning, vulnerability management, and container and Kubernetes security into a unified platform. It also offers complete visibility of your security posture, inventory and asset management capabilities, and remediation recommendations.

Key features:

• Secret Scanning and Analysis to identify, assess, and mitigate security risks.

• Scans Snapshot to ensure sensitive data is not leaked to third parties.

• Inventory and Asset Management features to keep track of all your assets from a single dashboard.

Advantages:

• Helps development teams handle issues in their own applications and infrastructure quickly and safely. 

• Provides risk prioritization, direct visibility, and remediation recommendations.

Disadvantages:

• Cost considerations are high for small businesses.

• Platform support is limited

FortiSIEM

FortiSIEM is a SIEM or Security Information and Event Management solution. FortiSIEM is a highly scalable multi-tenant SIEM solution that offers user awareness and real-time infrastructure for precise threat detection, reporting, and analysis.

Key features:

• Event Correlation using advanced correlation to identify significant security incidents and events.

• Log management to efficiently standardize, collect, and securely store log data.

• Threat Intelligence to collect, assess, and produce insights into an organization’s cybersecurity posture.

Advantages:

• Integrates easily with other Fortinet products

• Helps manage organizational technology system occurrences efficiently.

• FortiSiem’s view of business services simplifies the management of network operations and security.

Disadvantages:

• Difficult to integrate third-party sources.

• High technical support.

How can you choose the right CIEM solution?

If all the tools we mentioned above has piqued your interest, it’s time to ask some questions before you make the decision. Here are some of the questions you need deep dive on before going ahead:

Are the security features comprehensive?

Start by examining the security features of the CIEM solution. First, make sure the solution you choose has proper end-to-end security measures. This list must include:

• IAM integration
• Privileged access management
• Behavioral analytics
• Data encryption

Is the solution audit aligned?

Check if your CIEM tool is audit-friendly. This is to make the job of the audit easy and it helps you avoid a lot of back and forth. The automated tool needs to have features like automated evidence collection for easy evidence management. You need a system with eagle eyes and the ability to generate comprehensive reports, helping you keep an eye on security incidents or breaches.

Does the tool offer a user-friendly interface

Ask yourself if the CIEM solution is user-friendly. Ultimately, the goal of the tool should be to make it easy for your security teams to manage access controls and in a simple way. No complications is a no brainer here.

Does the tool fit my budget?

Lastly, assess the cost-effectiveness of the CIEM solution. See the pricing model of the tool, compare it with other tools and check if it aligns with your budget. Also, remember to factor in implementation costs, licensing fees, and ongoing maintenance expenses. 

Achieve comprehensive cloud security with Sprinto

Monitoring and implementing security controls to safeguard an organization’s infrastructure is the need of the hour to build customer trust, protect sensitive data, and ensure continuity of business operations. Doing so manually can prove to be a challenging task, and you may not always get the most accurate results.

We are here to help!

Sprinto is a powerful yet user-friendly comprehensive security and compliance solution that seamlessly integrates with any cloud setup to map entity-level controls, consolidate risk, and run fully automated checks. Get compliant across frameworks, monitor your cybersecurity posture, and implement security controls across your organization– all in real-time, all from a single dashboard. Get in touch with our experts to learn more on how you can leverage its expertise.

FAQs

What is an example of a CIEM?

CIEM enables companies to leverage advanced techniques, such as ML, to suggest the least privileges for a particular kind of work. For instance, a user might request SSH access to a production machine to check out an environment variable or verify some configuration value.

What is the difference between IAM and CIEM?

IAM tools help identity professionals determine as well as control the level of access that users have within the organization. CIEM solutions provide an additional layer of security to IAM in cloud-based environments

Why is CIEM important?

A major role of CIEM is to address the limitations of the tools companies use to define permissions, manage security policies and configurations, and ensure compliance. CIEM helps organizations counter issues such as Entitlement tracking, where most cloud tools track entitlements using cloud providers’ IAM frameworks.

What is the difference between CIEM and CASB?

While CIEM controls help manage access to cloud resources, CASB manages SaaS application access while securing data while it is at rest and in transit within cloud applications.