Network Logs Reveal What Cloud Logs Miss
▼ Summary
– Cloud migrations create security blind spots, making real-time network traffic visibility essential for effective cyber defense.
– Network-layer telemetry provides a consistent, tamper-resistant data source that overcomes the inconsistencies and fragmentation of cloud-native logs.
– Key threats detectable with network monitoring include supply-chain compromises, credential theft, misuse of managed services, and cryptocurrency mining.
– An effective monitoring strategy must cover east-west and north-south traffic, container communications, TLS metadata, and DNS data.
– Security teams should operationalize visibility by centralizing telemetry, establishing baselines, tightly monitoring egress, and continuously validating detection capabilities.
Moving to the cloud was supposed to simplify security, but the reality for many organizations is a landscape filled with new vulnerabilities. Dynamic infrastructure, container sprawl, and multi-cloud architectures have created significant blind spots that traditional cloud logs often fail to illuminate. As threats evolve to bypass endpoint detection tools, security teams are rediscovering a critical truth: comprehensive defense requires clear visibility into network traffic, a layer that remains consistent across any environment.
A major hurdle in cloud security is the lack of standardization in native logging. Each cloud provider uses unique fields, structures, and terminologies, making it difficult to normalize data for analysis. This fragmentation turns threat hunting into a complex puzzle. Network telemetry acts as a universal common denominator, providing a consistent stream of data regardless of the underlying platform. Security analysts, who are typically already skilled in interpreting network data, can leverage this familiar signal to quickly identify suspicious patterns. When enriched with cloud inventory context, like account names, virtual networks, and pod labels, this network data becomes a powerful, provider-agnostic foundation for detection and investigation.
This is the core strength of a Network Detection and Response (NDR) approach. NDR delivers consistent, real-time visibility across hybrid and multi-cloud environments, normalizing telemetry to give defenders a single pane of glass. In dynamic cloud settings where workloads can be ephemeral, fundamental security principles still apply. Even short-lived containers communicate in predictable ways. Key signals that defenders should monitor include external communications over unusual ports, deviations in typically immutable production containers, signs of system enumeration, and any attempts to disable host-based security sensors.
Network-level collection, achieved through traffic mirroring and virtual taps, offers a significant advantage: it is largely tamper-resistant. This provides visibility independent of a potentially compromised host’s integrity. By fusing this network data with endpoint and container runtime context, security teams can close cloud-native security gaps. Specific threats visible in monitored cloud traffic include supply-chain compromises via malicious container images, intrusions using stolen credentials, the suspicious presence of interactive admin tools like SSH in production containers, and data exfiltration through misuse of managed services.
Knowing what to monitor is the next critical step. Essential visibility points encompass east-west traffic between services, north-south traffic to and from the internet, all container communications, TLS metadata to identify service endpoints, DNS queries, and both broad flow logs and deep packet-level data. Building an effective operational workflow begins with enabling these data sources and understanding their respective strengths. The subsequent steps involve centralizing this telemetry into a single platform, enriching it with contextual tags, and establishing intelligent baselines for critical services.
Monitoring egress traffic tightly is a non-negotiable best practice. Security teams must instrument their virtual network choke points and look for connections to newly observed domains, signs of periodic beaconing, or unusual data transfer spikes. Profiling managed-service access via TLS metadata can reveal unauthorized API calls, while proactive hunting for connections to known cryptomining pools is essential. Any instance of interactive protocols within containers or patterns of lateral movement should immediately raise a flag. Furthermore, correlating network egress data with known endpoint compromises can reveal the full scope of an intrusion.
Ultimately, robust multi-cloud security is achievable by applying timeless network security principles to modern architectures. As adversaries grow more sophisticated, comprehensive network visibility is not an optional luxury, it is the essential foundation for understanding your environment and stopping threats before they escalate into full-blown incidents.
(Source: Bleeping Computer)
