Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) is a category of tools that continuously monitor cloud infrastructure for misconfigurations, policy violations, and compliance gaps.

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Main takeaways

• CSPM targets IaaS and PaaS environments—AWS, Azure, GCP—where organizations control the configuration of cloud infrastructure resources.
• Misconfiguration is the leading cause of cloud data breaches; CSPM provides the automated detection layer that makes continuous compliance feasible at scale.
• CSPM addresses cloud infrastructure posture. It does not address SaaS application posture—that's a separate discipline covered by SSPM.
• In a mature cloud security program, CSPM and SSPM are complementary: CSPM governs the infrastructure layer; SSPM governs the application layer.

What is CSPM?

Cloud infrastructure is configurable by design—and that configurability is precisely what creates risk. A storage bucket set to public access. An IAM role with administrator permissions granted to a resource that doesn't need them. A database with encryption disabled by default. These aren't the result of sophisticated attacks; they're the cumulative effect of hundreds of small configuration decisions made quickly, at scale, across a distributed engineering team. CSPM tools connect directly to cloud provider APIs—AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform—to continuously assess those configurations against security best practices and flag anything that deviates from the standard.

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Why misconfiguration is the core problem

Cloud infrastructure is configurable by design. That flexibility is exactly what makes it powerful—and exactly what creates risk.

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A storage bucket set to public read. A database with no encryption. A security group with open inbound access on port 22. An IAM role with administrator permissions granted to an EC2 instance that doesn't need them. These aren't the result of sophisticated attacks. They're the result of speed, default settings, and the cumulative effect of hundreds of small configuration decisions made across a distributed engineering team.

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At cloud scale, manual auditing of configurations is not feasible. CSPM provides the automation layer that makes continuous posture assessment possible.

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What CSPM covers

Core CSPM capabilities include:

• Misconfiguration detection—Identifying exposed resources, weak access controls, and insecure defaults before they're exploited.
• IAM policy analysis—Surfacing overprivileged roles, unused permissions, and violations of least-privilege principles.
• Compliance mapping—Assessing infrastructure against regulatory frameworks and generating audit-ready reports.
• Drift detection—Identifying when infrastructure configurations change from an approved baseline, which may indicate unauthorized changes or gradual degradation.
• Remediation guidance—Providing actionable fix recommendations, and in some cases automated remediation, for identified issues.

CSPM vs. SSPM: understanding the boundary

CSPM and SSPM are frequently confused, but they address different layers of the cloud stack.

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CSPM governs the infrastructure layer: the cloud services, compute resources, and platform configurations that engineering and DevOps teams manage. It's relevant for organizations running workloads on IaaS or PaaS platforms.

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SSPM governs the application layer: the SaaS tools that employees use every day—their configurations, access controls, OAuth integrations, and identity-related risks. It doesn't require infrastructure access because SaaS apps sit entirely above that layer.

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Most organizations need both. A strong CSPM posture doesn't tell you that a sales rep connected an AI tool to Salesforce through an over-permissioned OAuth grant. That's SSPM's domain.

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Learn how Nudge Security approaches SaaS security posture management →