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Cloud security, the right way: The 3 pillars of real-time defense

Sysdig Team
Cloud security, the right way: The 3 pillars of real-time defense
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Sysdig Team
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Cloud security, the right way: The 3 pillars of real-time defense
Published:
October 6, 2025
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What cloud security, the right way means

“Good enough” security isn’t keeping pace. Periodic scans, black box detections, and endless noise leave defenders blind and slow builders down. 

Doing cloud security the right way means raising the bar: no guesswork, no black boxes, and decisions driven by what’s actually risky. It’s about security that matches the speed, precision, and openness of the cloud.

At Sysdig, cloud security, the right way, is built on three pillars: agentic AI, open innovation, and runtime insights. Together, these pillars deliver real-time defense that accelerates the innovation in the cloud. 

Pillar 1: Agentic AI that guides (and takes) precise action

Most AI in security highlights problems but leaves teams to figure out the rest. That isn’t enough in the cloud, where context changes by the minute. 

You need agentic AI that acts like a teammate. One that understands your environment, prioritizes risk in context, and helps you act with confidence. AI that connects live signals across workloads, identities, posture, and vulnerabilities, then answers the questions that matter most:

  • Is this risk real right now?
  • What’s the next best action and why?
  • How do we fix this? 

Done right, agentic AI reduces noise, escalates what matters, and moves investigations forward automatically. It doesn’t replace humans, but enables them by reducing time-to-triage.

What to look for:

  • Environment-aware reasoning 
  • Evidence you can inspect and trust
  • Recommendations tied to business impact and ownership

Pillar 2: Open innovation that builds trust and puts you in control

Security built in black boxes erodes trust. If you can’t see how decisions are made, you can’t verify, explain, or adapt them.  

Open innovation flips that model. Transparent detection logic and customizable rules empower defenders to move at machine speed. With Falco, the open source standard for cloud threat detection created by Sysdig, teams aren’t starting from scratch; they’re building on the knowledge of thousands of contributors and researchers worldwide. When detections are open and inspectable, teams can validate logic, tune it to their environment, and contribute back to the community. 

What to look for:

Pillar 3: Runtime insights that power real-time defense

Static snapshots only tell you what used to be true. In the cloud, workloads spin up and disappear in seconds, leaving defenders blind to what’s actually happening now. Attackers exploit those gaps, often before your data refreshes. 

Runtime insights close that gap. They surface what’s actually happening (e.g., process execution, identity use, data access, and lateral movement) across your environment. With that truth as the foundation, teams can detect attacks as they unfold, prioritize  exploitable risk, and respond in the moment.

What to look for:

  • Real-time telemetry across containers, Kubernetes, serverless, hosts, and cloud services
  • Multi-domain correlation across containers, workloads, identities, networks, servers, and cloud services
  • Immediate context for investigations: who, what, where, and blast radius
  • Fast, targeted response actions 

How the three pillars work together

On their own, each pillar makes security stronger. But when combined, they create a system that secures the complete cloud lifecycle: 

  • Agentic AI recommends and takes precise action.
  • Open innovation lets teams verify logic, customize detections, and benefit from the collective knowledge of a global community. 
  • Runtime insights reveal real risk so you can focus on the issues that matter.

The outcome: less noise, more time to focus on innovating, and a culture of trust between security, engineering, and leadership.

The right way from here

“Good enough” security isn’t keeping pace. This approach buries analysts in noise, leaves developers without context, and forces CISOs to make decisions in the dark.

Cloud security done right changes that. When teams adopt this standard, they can:

  • Focus on real risk.
  • Detect and respond to threats in real time.  
  • Empower builders with clarity and context.
  • Earn trust through transparency. 

That’s the promise of agentic AI, open innovation, and runtime insights. And that’s the path forward for builders and defenders who refuse to settle for “good enough.”

Ready to see cloud security, the right way?

See how Sysdig delivers real-time defense with agentic AI, open innovation, and runtime insights. Test drive the platform today.

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