The average enterprise uses more than 1,295 cloud services.
Every year, this number increases as cloud footprints grow, introducing new levels of complexity to the cybersecurity equation.
This seemingly ever-expanding cloud footprint often creates more critical and consistent security risks, along with the urgency of remediating those security risks. Tools that enable remediation operations — sometimes called RemOps — aim to provide faster and more efficient methods for finding and fixing security risk.
However, relying solely on platforms to handle cloud remediation can introduce entirely new risks, vulnerabilities, and inefficiencies. At the same time, solely manual processes can take too long and introduce human error.
Cloud security teams must find the balance between using remediation operations platforms and human-centric processes.
Rather than focusing on an all-in-one approach that leans too heavily on automation and AI, balancing human intelligence and AI with best-in-class solutions combines their benefits while minimizing drawbacks.
Learn how RemOps solutions aim to complement human expertise with AI-driven platforms to add a balanced approach that enhances cloud security.
What Are Remediation Operations Tools?
A RemOps solution is designed to simplify and accelerate cloud security remediation, which makes these platforms a vital component in an effective Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) program. A remediation operation tool takes on a few key responsibilities:
- Automating repetitive tasks: These tools typically handle high-volume, low-complexity issues at scale, such as simple misconfigurations.
- Surfacing actionable insights: An effective tool will continuously prioritize vulnerabilities in near real-time, typically by aggregating information from a CNAPP/CSPM.
- Supporting cloud-native integrations: The capability to streamline remediation within cloud environments can reduce manual intervention.
However, these tools have inherent limitations and may introduce new problems. Without human oversight, RemOps tools often lack the context to address nuanced scenarios, such as the implication a change may have to a production application.
That’s why an assisted remediation approach is typically the best option. This strategy aligns RemOps tools with human expertise, combining the benefits of automation without the risks of a tool creating entirely new issues.
Why Remediation Operations Tools Alone Aren’t Enough
Organizations relying solely on automation will quickly discover that remediation challenges extend beyond technology. Automation can help, but gaps persist in fix resolution and investigation areas:
- Dynamic cloud environments: Cloud infrastructure changes quickly as continuous integration and deployment introduce nearly constant changes. Static automation rules can’t keep pace with this fluidity, but RemOps tools depend on them.
- Expertise shortages: You may not get what you’re paying for without the right people behind the platforms. The security skills gap means organizations struggle to operate and benefit from their tools meaningfully, which makes them underutilized.
- Siloed teams: Regardless of what you call your teams, Security and DevOps often have conflicting priorities, as DevOps focuses on uptime and performance, while security emphasizes risk mitigation. Tools alone can’t resolve this cultural and procedural disconnect.
For example, imagine an employee is the only one who knows the business context as to why we’re keeping this specific instance’s port 5642 open, and other teams need to check with them before closing it. A RemOps tool may automatically close the port — potentially having far-reaching consequences.
A remediation operations plan that encompasses technology with human verification and context is the safest way to move forward with both speed and precision.
How Managed Cloud Security Remediation Fills the Gaps
While automation and RemOps tools have value, they are far from a complete solution. Managed cloud security remediation, on the other hand, takes a holistic approach to addressing vulnerabilities by aligning people, processes, and tools.
A managed approach avoids relying too heavily on automation and emphasizes expertise, collaboration, and adaptability — effectively closing gaps in traditional and automated remediation.
Human-Led Prioritization and Context
Managed remediation relies on skilled human experts to assess contextual vulnerabilities rather than programmatic input.
With a managed approach, experts assess the technical severity and the potential business impact of identified vulnerabilities. As a result, remediation efforts focus on what matters most and an overarching understanding of the cloud environment, avoiding unnecessary or unhelpful actions that an automated system may have implemented.
Unified Integration and Collaboration with DevOps
For example, an improperly set up automated RemOps platform could potentially disrupt a company website by restricting access to an S3 bucket used to host website assets. Issues like these can create minor or critical vulnerabilities, as the tool doesn’t understand the full context behind what it finds.
Managed remediation integrates directly into cloud, security, and dev workflows to combine efforts across critical teams. A managed approach makes sure that security fixes are deployed with minimal disruption, reducing friction and building collaborative team trust by working with all parties, not against them.
Continuous Adaptation to Dynamic Environments
Cloud environments constantly change due to new configurations, services, and dependencies being deployed seemingly every day.
Managed remediation adapts to these changes in real-time by using human expertise to make changes and maintain security without slowing innovation or creating entirely new problems.
Scalability Without Overhead
Adopting a managed approach minimizes the need for hiring human experts directly proportional to growth, allowing organizations to manage increasing complexity efficiently. Thanks to combining advanced technology with expert oversight, managed remediation can scale to meet the needs of growing cloud deployments.
Which Approach Works Best for My Organization?
Businesses need to assess their unique needs and goals when deciding between traditional remediation, RemOps tooling alone, or a managed approach. We’ve explored both options, but let’s break down how to choose the right path forward for your organization.
RemOps Tools Alone
Adopting a platform with autonomous remediation can be tempting, but these tools and underlying technologies are far from perfect. However, some businesses may still benefit from these tools.
Keep the following factors in mind when considering relying on these tools:
- They are best suited for clearly architectured environments with infrequent changes.
- A RemOps tool handles repetitive, well-defined tasks efficiently.
- The absence of expert oversight and context inherently limits these platforms.
Managed Cloud Security Remediation with RemOps
Managed remediation service providers use these tools to enhance efficiency but ensure that decision-making and strategic alignment remain in the hands of experts.
While tools like RemOps solutions support managed remediation by automating repetitive tasks and providing initial triage, they are most effective when guided by human oversight.
- A managed approach is designed for complex, multi-cloud environments with frequent dynamic changes.
- Combining advanced technology and human expertise aligns remediation operations with DevOps to ensure security without operational disruptions.
- This strategy can scale effectively through continuous improvement driven by human-AI collaboration.
How to Scale with Human-AI Collaboration
RemOps tools, while valuable, need human oversight to maximize their potential and prevent causing entirely new issues. The key to scaling cloud security lies in the synergy between human expertise and AI-driven automation. Here are a few ways managed remediation drives scalable growth:
- Continuous improvement: Every remediation feeds data into AI models, improving accuracy and relevance, especially when humans bring their insights into remediation.
- Adaptability to change: Human expertise helps adjust strategies to address emerging threats and evolving cloud architectures.
- Efficient growth: Thanks to smarter tools guided by expert insights, businesses can scale security efforts without proportional increases in headcount.
Collaboration between humans and AI enhances operational efficiency and ensures security measures remain aligned with business goals.
Introduce RemOps to Your Managed Cloud Security Remediation Strategy
RemOps tools alone will not make your CTEM program effective or accurate.
While these new tools have value, they should not be allowed to make changes across cloud environments without oversight.
That’s why organizations should manage cloud security remediation by combining human intelligence, AI, and best-in-class remediation technology to address cloud remediation gaps fully.
Tamnoon is an industry-leading provider of managed remediation that transforms RemOps into a scalable, effective solution for dynamic cloud environments. We combined hard-earned human expertise and insights with emerging technologies to create an entirely new level of cloud security remediation.
Are you tired of time-intensive manual processes but don’t want to let an autonomous system take full control? Book a demo today to explore how Tamnoon’s managed remediation approach combines the benefits of humans and systems for the ultimate benefit of stronger security.
