Platform as a Service (PaaS)

What is Platform as a Service (PaaS)?

A Platform as a Service (PaaS) is a cloud-based computing platform that represents a shift away from traditional, on-premises, or legacy computing platforms. These cloud-based services typically comprise a modular bundle of applications.

Originally all PaaS providers were in the public cloud. As the market evolved, private and hybrid PaaS providers sprung up, allowing internal IT departments to manage the platforms.

Cloud-based platforms are delivered in three ways:

  • As a public cloud service from a provider that delivers networks, servers, storage, OS, middleware, and a database to host the customer’s application
  • As a private service behind a firewall
  • As software deployed on public infrastructure as a service (IaaS)

PaaS may address a range of use cases and services spanning app design, app dev, testing and deployment, team collaboration, web service integration, database integration, security, scalability, storage, persistence, state management, app versioning, app instrumentation, and dev community facilitation.

How does PaaS Differ from Traditional Platforms?

PaaS was originally designed to simplify writing code by supporting infrastructure and operations. PaaS allows developers and companies to create, host and deploy applications without the complexity of building and maintaining infrastructure. Building and maintaining these applications in-house is cumbersome, inefficient, and resource-intensive.

PaaS helps speed up the development of apps, allowing developers to focus on the application itself rather than the backend infrastructure. The customer manages the application and data, while the provider (or IT department in private PaaS) manages runtime, middleware, OS, virtualizations, servers, storage, and networking. The tools included with a PaaS are customized according to the customer’s needs, and they may consist of options for either provider-based or customer-based maintenance.

The business case for making a move to the cloud has never been more compelling. Enterprises must deliver the rapid innovation that today’s consumers expect or face falling far behind their more nimble competitors. At the same time, sophisticated and well-resourced advanced persistent threat actors are specifically targeting cloud resources. As long as attackers can adapt their strategies and techniques more quickly than businesses can evolve their defenses, we can only expect the same troubling trends to continue.

Security Risks Inherent to PaaS

Cloud environments are inherently different from legacy on-premises IT environments. These differences are responsible for many of the benefits of cloud migration and can create new security vulnerabilities.

  • Cloud environments are scalable and elastic, so resources are ephemeral, making it challenging to secure them with solutions designed for static on-premises IT infrastructures.
  • Cloud environments are borderless computing ecosystems in which distributed workforces can access resources anywhere, rendering the traditional “castle and moat” model of perimeter-centric security irrelevant.
  • Cloud environments are built for speed and agility, resulting in security gaps when cumbersome tools designed for on-premises architectures run periodic scans instead of continuous monitoring.
  • Cloud environments enable applications to communicate with one another in real-time via an integration pattern that’s incompatible with legacy inter-application communications. Data gets pulled from other applications on an occasional, scheduled basis.

The primary risk associated with cloud computing in general, spanning SaaS, Paas, and IaaS–is that data and resources are moved outside of the enterprise firewall. There are security tradeoffs related to data and organizational compliance when companies separate applications, and IT resources from physical infrastructure.

The worry is that nefarious hackers gain access to critical information during a data breach. There’s also a risk of hackers gaining unauthorized access to servers running application instances to change configurations. Improper configuration of certain PaaS could also expose an organization to security risks. Providers must also adhere to best practices and provide relevant policies and guidelines.

Misconfiguration and rapid transformation can also increase security risks, especially if done hastily. The number of cloud misconfiguration-related data breaches has risen steeply, now comprising more than 10% of all breaches examined in the 2022 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report. It’s becoming increasingly apparent that yesterday’s security tools and management models are ineffective in today’s cloud-based world.

Patterns over time in breaches - Verizon 2022 Data Breach Report

A 2021 survey of more than 250 IT professionals reveals that more than half of all businesses have experienced a security breach related to their cloud-based services.

Many of the breaches have been high-profile, with large brands suffering damage to their reputations and business. For example, Alibaba Cloud, the largest Asian cloud provider, had a data breach resulting in the leak of over 1.1 billion records on the company’s TaoBao e-commerce platform.

Saviynt & PaaS

Saviynt’s platform acts as an identity control plane across numerous PaaS providers, all of which have different roles, entitlements, secrets, and services.

Our Enterprise Identity Cloud platform protects cloud-based platforms and hardens data management practices of cloud-based collaboration tools like Microsoft 365 and Box. The popularity of the BYOD model has created a world where basic data encryption is no longer enough.

Saviynt Cloud Privileged Access Management (PAM)

Saviynt’s Cloud PAM is built for the cloud — in the cloud — to solve privilege management challenges unique to the cloud. It is specifically designed to work with SaaS applications as well as infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) and platform-as-a-service (PaaS) computing models.

With Saviynt IGA, you can improve visibility, security, and governance across your organization.

Cloud PAM natively integrates with DevOps tools and the communication platforms in widespread use in today’s remote work-enabled business computing environments. It also works with security information and event management (SIEM) platforms and other security alerting infrastructures. And it integrates with identity governance solutions.

Because Cloud PAM is a SaaS solution, it comes with all the benefits that enterprises expect from cloud-based platforms. There’s no need to invest in infrastructure; we take care of management for you, and configuring and updating the software is easy. Deployment is simple, too. It’s delivered via an agentless, zero-touch architecture and can be set up in days, even at a large organization.

Want to learn more? See how Saviynt CPAM compares to traditional PAM solutions.

Saviynt Data Access Governance

Saviynt Data Access Governance (DAG) helps you discover, analyze, protect, and manage access to all of your data — whether your IT ecosystem is on-premises, in the cloud, or hybrid.

With Saviynt DAG, your organization can:

  • Stop sensitive data from falling into the wrong hands
  • Gain access visibility into sensitive data
  • Identify and mitigate control violations
  • Define policies to prevent data exfiltration

Questions people often ask about Platform as a Service (PaaS)

Is a PaaS vulnerable to attacks, such as ransomware, DDOS, and malware?

PaaS solutions are vulnerable to many types of attacks. Securing them requires a shared responsibility model between the solution vendor and the client. Generally, ownership over security areas must be clearly defined, with each party maintaining control over those assets, processes, and function. Clients must work together with their cloud provider and share security responsibilities to maintain a secure environment with less operational overhead. Cloud Security Alliance provides a great article that takes a deep dive into this topic.

How does the PaaS secure my data?

Not all PaaS providers are created equal. Each platform will have a slightly different approach to securing data. Typically, PaaS platforms will begin their security approach with physical data center security and infrastructure. Customized hardware designed for the cloud is typically integrated with security controls and DDoS protection. The quality of the team of cybersecurity experts supporting these products also makes a difference.

Built-in controls and services typically secure workloads and provide continuous protection. Sometimes additional intelligence features are included that allow for early detection and management of threats.

To understand more about the security approaches for the most popular PaaS providers, check out Microsoft Azure, this ebook provided by Amazon Web Services, and this whitepaper provided by Google Cloud.

How do you ensure least privilege access is enforced?

Cloud platforms generally provide native tools for managing pieces of privileged access and other capabilities, though they typically can’t be extended for multi-cloud use. Organizations should implement a combination of IAM and PAM solutions that work together across their multi-cloud ecosystem to help provide fine-grained control, visibility, and auditability over all credentials and privileges.

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