Cloud technologies offer numerous business advantages and are highly beneficial across a variety of use cases. However, they are growing increasingly vulnerable to a wide range of security concerns, and cutting-edge security tools and technologies are required to address these weak points. Indicators of attack (IOAs) are signs that a potential attack is in progress,  and they act as an early warning system against breaches.

In this article, we’ll explore how IOAs are a game changer for cloud security and how organizations can use them to increase security in Google Cloud. We’ll also discuss how the CrowdStrike Falcon® platform can be integrated with Google Cloud to provide enhanced, AI-powered IOA features and a robust security posture for your Google Cloud account.

The significance of IOAs in cloud security

IOAs aim to identify attack patterns before they become successful breaches, unlike indicators of compromise (IOCs), which are more reactive in nature and are more beneficial for the post-breach forensics process. IOAs were developed to detect behavioral anomalies and suspicious patterns commonly associated with sophisticated threats such as zero-day exploits and advanced persistent threats. This unique, behavior-based approach to cloud security provides significant advantages over more traditional signature-based and rule-based detection methods, such as a network intrusion protection system (NIPS).

IOAs shift the focus from static event analysis — such as telemetry data examination — to the intent and methodology of attackers. By focusing on IOAs, security analysts can be better equipped to rapidly respond to and diagnose an attack. They can track movements and stay ahead of both potential and ongoing threats. Ultimately, IOAs dramatically enhance a security team’s ability to detect more covert and sophisticated threats.

IOAs in Google Cloud

Google Cloud is one of the top cloud providers in the world. As with any cloud environment, detecting security threats and maintaining consistent security across all resources in such a vast and diverse system is highly challenging and requires the best cybersecurity tools available.

By monitoring and analyzing Google Cloud audit logs and VPC flow logs in real time, IOA-based threat prevention tools help detect anomalous network activities in your Google Cloud account. These activities, such as sudden spikes or drops in traffic, port scanning, or unusually large data transfers to external locations, can be early indicators of malicious activity.

Suspicious user behavior is also a major red flag that IOA-based threat prevention tools are designed to detect. Repetitive failed login attempts, login attempts at unusual hours, or logins from unexpected geographical locations are all indicators of an attack. Unless they are identified quickly for successful mitigation, these indicators often precede catastrophic breaches.

IOA-based threat prevention tools excel in detecting system-level IOAs, such as changes to critical files without proper authorization, abnormally high spikes in resource usage, or installation of new unknown software.

How CrowdStrike integrates with Google Cloud

Not all IOA-based threat prevention tools provide the same feature set, level of sophistication, or compatibility with cloud providers like Google Cloud. The Falcon platform seamlessly integrates with Google Cloud and uses AI-powered IOAs for enhanced security capabilities.

Continuous monitoring and vVisibility

CrowdStrike Falcon® Cloud Security bundles in cloud security posture management (CSPM), continuously monitoring and scanning assets deployed in your Google Cloud environment. It helps you rapidly identify potential irregularities, misconfigurations, compliance risks, and security issues.

Cloud security dashboards provide detailed visibility into cloud resource configurations, access permissions, compliance status, and remediation steps, enabling you to rectify any potential vulnerabilities, enforce best practices for cloud security, and ensure complete adherence to regulatory requirements.

Real-time threat detection and remediation

If a threat arises, the difference between a catastrophic breach and successful mitigation may come down to a matter of minutes, if not seconds. Falcon Cloud Security seamlessly integrates with Google Cloud, offering real-time data processing and enabling your team to take immediate action to stop attacks before they become successful breaches. Falcon Cloud Security intelligently filters noise to distinguish critical issues and vulnerabilities from those that do not require immediate attention. With efficiently prioritized threats, your organization can focus on addressing the most pressing risks.

Threat intelligence and behavior-based analytics

By leveraging behavior-based tactics, techniques, and procedures, Falcon Cloud Security can spot patterns of abnormal user activity. The solution leverages threat intelligence to compare these unusual patterns against known attack mechanisms and determine whether this behavior can confidently be classified as malicious activity.

Conclusion

Cloud intrusions are increasing at a tremendous rate, affecting business operations on a global scale. The optimal way to protect your organization's cloud environment is to use best-in-class security tools that help with attack prevention (such as IOA-based threat prevention tools) and post-breach forensics (such as IOC-based detection tools). Cloud security platforms and CSPM tools that utilize AI-powered IOAs provide real-time threat detection and proactive remediation by identifying suspicious behavior instantly and filtering events for noise and false positives.

To learn more, try an interactive demo of CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security.