What is Cloud Scanning, and Why Does It Matter?

Cloud environments continue to experience widespread adoption because of their flexibility and dynamic nature. They empower developers to quickly deploy or modify business applications and many other core business functions. However, this very dynamism and complexity also make them difficult to secure. In the ephemeral world of cloud computing, where workloads are spun up and spun down with a keystroke, implementing core security practices like cloud scanning has become critical for maintaining visibility across these expansive environments.

Cloud scanning emerges as the critical solution, empowering security teams to navigate this intricate environment and proactively mitigate potential risks. It’s not just about checking boxes; it’s about ensuring robust security in the face of ever-evolving threats. Cloud scanning provides the crucial visibility and control needed to protect vital assets and maintain a strong security posture in the cloud. In this article, we offer a quick overview of cloud scanning, its importance, and the various types of cloud scanning technologies.

What is Cloud Scanning?

Cloud scanning is the process of scanning your multi-cloud and container environments for vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and compliance gaps to address security teams’ challenges. It plays a critical role in safeguarding cloud workloads and is necessary for security teams to stay ahead of potential risks.

Cloud scanners identify the following types of flaws:

• Vulnerabilities are weaknesses in cloud-based applications and infrastructure that attackers can exploit.
• Misconfigurations are instances where cloud resources are improperly configured, such as overly permissive access or publicly exposed storage buckets.
• Compliance Gaps are places where an organization’s cloud environment does not meet compliance policies set in place to meet the requirements of regulatory frameworks, legal mandates, and industry standards (e.g., HIPAA, GDPR, NIST, CIS).

Why Cloud Scanning Matters

By proactively identifying risks early and often, organizations can strengthen their security posture, reduce attack surfaces, and maintain operational agility while ensuring regulatory compliance. Cloud scanning plays a crucial role in integrating security within DevOps, enabling rapid and secure deployments while providing assurance that industry regulations are met.

Here are some of the critical factors that make investing in the right cloud scanning technologies a necessity for modern enterprises as part of a resilient cloud security strategy:

• The Threat Landscape Becomes More Sophisticated: Attackers are moving to the cloud and increasingly targeting cloud environments. Cloud scanning, particularly continuous cloud scanning that provides real-time visibility, is necessary to defend against sophisticated attack tactics and the growing spectrum of cloud-based threats.
• Misconfigurations Enable Exploitation: Studies show misconfigurations are a major challenge in cloud environments, given half of all environments are failing the CIS Benchmarks. Unfortunately, these misconfigurations, like publicly exposed cloud assets or excessive permissions, leave the door wide open for attackers.
• Ransomware and Extortion Persist: Ransomware remains a persistent problem, and extortion attacks are growing in scope and complexity. Cloud scanning helps you detect weaknesses and improper configurations that could be exploited by attackers, eventually mitigating the risk of ransomware and decreasing vulnerability to extortion schemes.
• Compliance Requirements: Failing to meet the strict regulations required of certain industries can subject an organization to fines and increased scrutiny. Automated cloud scanning ensures adherence to these regulatory frameworks, helping organizations avoid costly penalties.
• Rising Costs: The cost of a data breach continues to rise, and it is a prevalent risk in cloud deployments. Proactively identifying cloud risks reduces the financial impact of a potential breach and regulatory penalties. Moreover, investing in the right cloud scanning technologies minimizes false positives and erroneous alerts, allowing the already scarce resources in cloud security and IT teams to optimize their time and efficiency in responding to genuine threats.

Amidst these increasing challenges, selecting the appropriate cloud scanning technologies is key to ensuring robust security and efficient resource use. This proactive approach helps enterprises protect their assets, improve security posture, and maximize the effectiveness of their security teams.

Types of Cloud Scanning

There are many types of cloud scanning technologies that can be deployed, such as configuration assessment on infrastructure, applications, workloads, and vulnerability assessments using agent-based, network-based, API, or snapshot-based techniques, etc. All of them have strengths and limitations. To ensure you make an informed decision to choose the best solution for your needs, it’s important to understand these options and the differences that can make a critical impact. Here, we outline some of the most notable types:

Agentless Snapshot Scanning

Snapshot scanning involves using scanners that capture images of workloads, i.e., snapshots, from a cloud services provider’s (CSP) runtime block storage and then scanning them offline without touching the running workloads. The snapshots are stored in the customer’s own cloud accounts without sending those accounts outside their ownership. Essentially, snapshot scanning is an indirect method of scanning cloud workloads by analyzing this block storage instead of directly scanning them with agents.

Agent-Based Scanning

Agent-based scanning works by deploying a small piece of software, an agent, on the host or workload to scan for vulnerabilities, misconfiguration, and other security issues. Modern agents are typically lightweight, consume minimal resources, and are easy to deploy and maintain.

Agentless API-based scanning

API-based scanning uses an API to query an information service. This method is often used with public cloud service providers (CSPs) such as AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, etc., to get configuration and application information. API-based scanning provides a seamless way to integrate with cloud environments and gather critical security data.

Networking Scanning

Network scanning utilizes a scanner with a network connection to the resource being scanned. This type of scanner is usually virtualized and can reside anywhere—in the cloud, on-premises, etc.—as long as it has network connections to the workloads and resources it needs to scan. Network scanning comes in two forms: authenticated and unauthenticated. Authenticated scanning, the most commonly used type, means that the network scanner has credentials to access the workload or resources it scans.  

A one-size-fits-all approach is ineffective, especially when it comes to cloud scanning. No single scanning technology can effectively address every use case. Instead, multiple scanning technologies tailored to your specific needs should be used when and where they make the most sense.

Conclusion

Security leaders must advocate for a proactive, integrated approach to cloud security. As cloud adoption accelerates, so do security risks. Forward-thinking enterprises recognize that cloud security scanning is not just about identifying threats—it’s about enabling secure innovation. By implementing a comprehensive cloud vulnerability scanning strategy, leaders can build resilient cloud environments, reduce attack surfaces, and stay ahead of evolving cyber threats.

Explore Qualys TotalCloud with our FlexScan scanning—a breakthrough approach to cloud security that combines agentless, API-based, and snapshot-based scanning with agent-based and network-based scanning for unparalleled visibility, compliance, and protection.