6 Essential Features of Leading Cloud Security Solutions

In this article, we’ll explore key features of effective cloud-delivered security, with guidance and considerations for decision-makers.

Reshaping the Modern Security Landscape

Cloud adoption continues to grow by around 20% annually, alongside greater demand fueled by remote work, AI, and growing volumes of data. The promises of these new ways of working, from greater scalability to flexibility, productivity, and cost savings, have universal appeal. Unfortunately, all this growth and change also creates new opportunities for threat actors.

Ransomware attacks are surging, and more than 87% of threats now hide in encrypted traffic to evade detection. Attackers are exploiting weak IoT device security, deploying advanced malware, and reaping record profits. Meanwhile, traditional security and access solutions are falling behind—56% of organizations have suffered recent breaches tied to VPN vulnerabilities, highlighting the cracks in standard security models.

Cloud Security Beyond the Basics

Traditional "castle and moat" security architectures, built with firewalls and VPNs, were designed for a time when users and data rarely left the organization’s physical premises. They worked by establishing a perimeter around a trusted network that connected an organization’s users, apps, data, and devices.

Today, however, modern cloud environments and hybrid work have effectively inverted that perimeter. Networks are being endlessly extended to more devices, clouds, apps, and locations. Naturally, this creates new challenges for visibility and security.

Attackers are focusing on these gaps, using ransomware-as-a-service, sophisticated social engineering, AI-assisted intrusion techniques, identity-based exploits, and more to execute stealthy and rapid attacks. These are a few of the key reasons most organizations have turned to zero trust security as a more adaptable and safe way to fight evolving threats.

To find the way forward, organizations must continue to move beyond legacy tools and strategies. Let's look at some key features security providers should offer to ensure strong, flexible protection.

Feature #1: Zero Trust Architecture with AI

Nearly two-thirds of organizations worldwide had at least partially implemented a zero trust strategy by mid-2024, according to Gartner. It's a vital approach in a world where remote work, multi-cloud environments, and advanced threats create constant risks. But in the cyber arms race, as one side gains the upper hand, the other devises new strategies. The latest battleground is AI and automation.

To face the threat of automated and AI-powered attacks, organizations need solutions that integrate AI into zero trust architectures for smarter, faster, and more adaptive protection. Augmented with AI, zero trust becomes more efficient and effective. AI can analyze user behavior, detect anomalies, and adapt access policies in real time. Automated responses can block suspicious actions instantly, minimizing damage or downtime when threats occur.

Zero trust is a core strategy for cloud security providers. To capitalize on the combined strength of AI and zero trust, organizations should look for a platform that offers:

• AI- and ML-driven detection and blocking to fight zero day and other advanced threats in real time
• AI-powered app segmentation to ensure least-privileged access and reduce the risk of human error
• AI-powered automated data discovery to rapidly find and classify sensitive information across all channels
• AI-powered root cause analysis to speed up IT issue resolution and support user productivity

Feature #2: Advanced Threat Detection and Response

Basic intrusion prevention systems (IPS), malware scanning, and URL filtering are no longer enough. Today’s attackers are able to innovate quickly, using advanced techniques to bypass these traditional defenses. To keep pace, security providers are enhancing basic tools with AI and machine learning to boost their speed, accuracy, and detection capabilities.

Even so, security gaps remain. As identity-based attacks, AI exploits, and other new attack vectors grow, organizations need to embrace new approaches that provide defense-in-depth beyond signature-based detection. Here are some of the advanced detection and response technologies leading cloud security providers are offering to give security teams back the advantage:

Deception technology creates convincing fake systems and assets that lure attackers away from real ones. This slows them down and exposes their tactics as they move laterally and locate targets. Deception is especially effective against attacks that involve compromised identities, unlike traditional tools that will overlook many actions carried out by legitimate-looking users.

Identity threat detection and response (ITDR) delivers continuous monitoring and alerting to help stop identity-based attacks. As zero trust adoption leads attackers to focus more heavily on identity exploits, ITDR contains attacks on identity stores, remediates exposed and/or weak credentials, and more to reduce the risk of user compromise and lateral threat movement.

Managed threat hunting combines human intuition and advanced analytics to find and neutralize hidden threats that traditional tools may miss. By proactively detecting anomalies and other signs of compromise 24/7, hunters can stop threats before they become attacks. MTH enhances visibility and response, especially against stealthy attacks that evade automated detection.

Breach prediction technology is a preemptive threat detection and response solution that uses AI to find patterns in security data that signal potential breaches and suggest real-time policy updates. A recent innovation, it helps threat hunting and SOC teams anticipate attacks, speed up response, and reduce cyber risk, especially in the face of new and unknown threats.

Modern attackers can come from countless angles. Look for solutions that offer:

• AI-powered tools for faster, more accurate detection of evolving threats
• Deception technology to distract attackers and reveal their tactics
• Identity-based defenses to monitor, detect, and stop credential-based attacks
• 24/7 managed threat hunting to proactively uncover hidden or stealthy threats
• Breach prediction to anticipate and respond to potential attacks in real time

Feature #3: Holistic Data Protection

While threat detection reduces risk, no technology can eliminate it completely. When attacks slip through the cracks, data protection acts as the last line of defense against data loss and exposure. Today, data frequently moves between networks, and endpoints, through email, and across clouds and SaaS platforms. For traditional data security approaches, this gets complicated.

Traditionally, securing these channels has been the work of multiple siloed solutions—particularly the more recently created channels like cloud, SaaS, and now AI. However, this leads to complex management, redundant policies, poor visibility, and inevitable gaps in protection.

To avoid these issues and effectively guard against data breaches, organizations need unified solutions built for the cloud-driven world. The optimal solution should provide:

• Unified data protection for all channels, including web, email, devices, and GenAI apps
• Integrated posture management to address data risks across SaaS and public clouds
• Automated data discovery across endpoint, inline, and cloud data, whether in motion or at rest
• Browser isolation to deliver safe web experiences while protecting data from web-borne threats

Feature #4: Cloud Native Scalability and Flexibility

One of the cloud's greatest strengths is its ability to scale and adapt with organizations as they change. This is a key area where traditional solutions like VPNs and firewalls fall short. As fundamentally appliance-based tools, they have fixed processing capacity limits. With global traffic volumes constantly shifting and spiking, traditional solutions often hit those limits, which disrupts users' workflows and digital experiences.

Beyond productivity concerns, all this traffic should also be inspected for threats and data loss. With the vast majority of web traffic now encrypted, that means inspecting encrypted traffic at scale—another challenge for capacity-limited, appliance-based architectures. Without the processing power to inspect all TLS/SSL-encrypted traffic, traditional architectures allow threats hiding in that traffic to pass through undetected, opening the way for malware and data loss.

Organizations today need robust, cloud native security and connectivity that traditional architectures cannot deliver. This is why more and more organizations are turning to zero trust architecture. For maximum protection and performance, an effective zero trust platform must be able to provide:

• Cloud native, as-a-service deployment that eliminates appliances and provides superior scalability
• Inspection of 100% of traffic, including encrypted traffic, at high speed and scale
• Global security enforcement as close as possible to users (and other entities) to minimize latency
• Consistent protection in any location, on any network or device, supporting productivity

Feature #5: Integrations for Unified Protection

Modern security demands have outgrown disconnected point solutions, which often create enforcement gaps and flood teams with redundant alerts and fragmented visibility—key weaknesses adversaries exploit. Integrated security architectures offer a smarter solution.

By unifying identity, endpoint, network, and access tools, integrated systems close enforcement gaps, streamline operations, and reduce costs. These tools share threat intelligence and consolidate management, enabling faster, more efficient responses and creating a cohesive defense strategy.

Leading security providers offer fully integrated platforms that work seamlessly with existing systems. Prioritize platforms that offer:

• Native integrations with best-of-breed third-party solutions for improved cross domain security enforcement
• API-based support to enable custom integrations between existing tools and new platforms
• Unified dashboards for comprehensive ecosystem visibility, policy management, and threat detection
• Centralized controls to set, update, and enforce security policies across hybrid, multi-cloud, and edge environments
• Real-time threat intelligence and telemetry sharing to eliminate blind spots and accelerate incident response.

Feature #6: Compliance and Governance Automation

Sensitive data can be anywhere—and internal users, workloads, IoT/OT devices, and even third-parties may all need access. In this complex data landscape, manually achieving compliance is time-consuming, expensive, and virtually infeasible. Yet, compliance is critical: studies by Ponemon Institute and others have found the cost of noncompliance to be two to three times higher.

Leading cloud native security offerings like zero trust offer granular protection for regulated data, built-in reporting, and seamless automation that help limit liability and empower IT teams to respond effectively, reducing complexity and costs. When evaluating platforms, it's essential to confirm that they provide:

• Automated compliance tracking for widely used frameworks like GDPR, PCI DSS, and HIPAA as well as custom rules
• Compliance certification with global standards such as ISO 27001, SOC 2/3, FedRAMP, NIST 800-53, and more
• Automated reviews and policy updates to keep pace with evolving regulations, technologies, and threats
• Audit-ready documentation of certifications, security controls, privacy compliance, data policies, security assessments, and more
• Data loss prevention that can identify and secure regulated information wherever it goes
• Shadow IT discovery to quickly determine unsanctioned apps' trustworthiness and compliance status, and empower IT teams to respond
• Automated risk assessments to help identify and prioritize the most critical data security risks for remediation

Choosing the Right Cloud Security Solution: Practical Considerations

Every organization has unique needs, so thoughtfully evaluating cloud native security providers is key. Start by identifying priorities like compliance, scalability needs, and threats particular to your business.

Then, when looking at key features, consider the long term. Taking a piecemeal approach as issues arise creates solution sprawl, complexity, and security gaps. A comprehensive solution built to scale and adapt to your future challenges will be a more valuable investment than one that delivers standalone tools or short-term fixes.

Achieving Secure Growth in the Cloud

The future lies in efficient, scalable solutions that deliver robust protection against evolving risks. Organizations need comprehensive protection for users, data, and applications across hybrid and multi-cloud environments. From advanced threat detection to unified data protection and zero trust architecture powered by AI, the six features discussed in this article form the cornerstones of modern cloud security.

Zscaler is purpose-built for the cloud era to deliver speed, visibility, and scalability without compromise. Whether you're enhancing threat defense, simplifying compliance, or empowering productivity, the unified, cloud native Zscaler platform supports secure growth without complexity. As you look to your organization's future, consider whether Zscaler is the right partner to join you on your cloud security journey.