Cloud Security Graph Schema for Cross-Platform Risk Monitoring
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Solution Overview
Problem
Monitoring security threats and vulnerabilities across multiple cloud environments is complicated by the need for separate solutions for each environment, varying cloud provider offerings, and the scalability and size of these environments, which requires inefficient manual monitoring by multiple teams.
Innovation Solution
A method and system for generating a cybersecurity security graph using a predefined data schema to represent cloud environments, involving querying APIs, inspecting objects, and storing nodes in a graph database, allowing for efficient, scalable, and cross-platform monitoring.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If separate monitoring solutions are used for each cloud environment, then each environment can be monitored independently, but the system complexity increases and manual monitoring by multiple teams becomes inefficient
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges multiple separate monitoring solutions into a single unified monitoring platform that can monitor multiple cloud environments simultaneously. The security graph technology consolidates data from different cloud providers (AWS, Azure, GCP, etc.) into one system, eliminating the need for separate monitoring teams and solutions for each environment.
Solution Approach 2:
The monitoring system is designed with universal capabilities to work across multiple cloud environments and providers. The security graph can represent and monitor resources from any cloud provider using a standardized schema, making the system multi-functional and adaptable to different cloud ecosystems without requiring provider-specific solutions.
2Reliability
If multiple teams monitor large cloud environments independently, then each team can focus on their specific environment, but the ability to keep up with scale and demand becomes ineffective
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines the monitoring capabilities of multiple teams into a single automated system. The security graph automatically ingests, normalizes, and queries data across all cloud environments, replacing manual monitoring efforts with automated processes that scale efficiently with cloud growth.
Solution Approach 2:
The system replaces manual mechanical monitoring processes with automated computational processes. The security graph uses automated data ingestion, normalization, and querying mechanisms to monitor cloud environments at scale, eliminating the need for human teams to manually track and analyze security data across multiple environments.
3Speed
If information is stored in multiple separate cloud environments, then data is readily accessible locally, but storage requirements increase and query efficiency decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The system creates a virtual copy of cloud environment data in the form of a security graph. Instead of storing and querying actual cloud infrastructure data across multiple environments, the security graph creates a normalized virtual representation that can be queried efficiently without duplicating the underlying cloud storage resources.
Solution Approach 2:
The security graph acts as an intermediary layer between multiple cloud environments and the monitoring system. It normalizes and stores data in a standardized format that enables efficient querying across all environments without requiring direct access to or duplication of data in each individual cloud environment.
4Productivity
If a unified data schema is used across multiple cloud environments, then cross-platform querying becomes possible, but adapting to varying cloud provider offerings becomes more difficult
Solution Approach 1:
The system applies local quality by allowing each cloud provider's data to be ingested with its specific characteristics and nuances preserved during the data collection phase. The security graph then normalizes this diverse data into a common schema, enabling both local provider-specific handling and unified cross-platform querying capabilities.
Data Source
AI summary
A cybersecurity system provides the ability to detect security risks in a cross-platform cloud solution. A unified data schema is used to abstract resources, principals and others across multiple platforms. A security graph is generated to present a unified view of cloud environments, which are then easily queried using the structure of the data schema. The solution allows a compact representation of cloud environments, which is scalable and multi-layered. Various enrichments may be added to the security graph, which are generated for example based on policies, and inspection of workloads in the cloud environment. The security graph allows for representation of production environments, staging environments, as well as code for deploying workloads in the cloud environment. Thus the solution is also able to present a complete picture of a user's entire cloud environment.