Staying ahead: powering smarter cloud incident response

Security incidents in cloud environments unfold rapidly, requiring a balance between proactive defense and precise, real-time responses. Traditional access management approaches often accumulate permissions over time, creating a security liability when an account is compromised. SGNL redefines access control by applying continuous, context-driven policies, helping security teams reduce the likelihood of incidents while also responding swiftly and proportionally when they occur.

Proactive security: layered defense to reduce incidents

The best way to handle an incident is to ensure it never happens in the first place, and a strong defense-in-depth strategy will help minimize security gaps and the impact of credential compromises. SGNL enforces continuous, dynamic access control, ensuring that users only have the permissions they need at any given moment. Unlike traditional role-based access models, which grant permissions that persist over time, SGNL adapts access based on multiple real-time factors, including:

• HR systems: Verifying employment status and role.
• On-call systems: Ensuring only designated, on-call staff have access.
• Ticketing systems: Checking for assigned, active, and approved change requests.
• Device management systems: Confirming the security posture of the accessing device.

For an attacker to fully impersonate a legitimate user and gain unauthorized access, they would need to compromise every one of these systems simultaneously—a far more complex and unlikely scenario than stealing static, over-privileged credentials.

Reactive security: precision response in real time

Even with the best defenses, determined attackers will slip through. Many security companies focus on detection and response, analyzing behavior patterns to identify potential threats. SOAR platform solutions aggregate security intelligence and automate responses. However, these responses tend to be blunt instruments—wiping devices, revoking all access, or locking out users entirely. This works in extreme cases but introduces significant risks:

• False positives: A high rate of false alarms can lead to unnecessary disruptions, frustrating employees, and slowing down business operations.
• One-and-done attacker advantage: Attackers only need to succeed once, while defenders must be right every time.
• Operational paralysis: Overly aggressive responses (e.g., bricking an executive’s laptop) can cause unnecessary chaos.

How SGNL delivers a more targeted response

SGNL enables automated, proportionate actions that slow down potential attacks without causing collateral damage. Rather than shutting down an entire system, SGNL can:

• Log the user out of critical applications—forcing reauthentication and giving security teams time to investigate.
• Restrict access dynamically—removing permissions only for suspicious actions, rather than an all-or-nothing response.
• Require additional validation—prompting an extra authentication step if behavior appears abnormal.

This approach acts as a scalpel instead of a hammer, ensuring that defenders can act quickly without crippling operations. SGNL moves faster than traditional incident response methods, providing a crucial buffer window for human analysts to determine the next steps.

The future of incident response: faster, smarter, more adaptive

Security teams today are cautious about full automation for a good reason—overreacting to false positives wastes time and resources. But relying on manual intervention alone means falling behind attackers who move in real time. SGNL strikes the right balance, offering automated, real-time adjustments that slow down threats and give security teams the breathing room they need to make informed decisions.

With SGNL, cloud security isn’t just about locking things down; it’s about staying ahead, adapting instantly, and ensuring that access control is always working in your favor.

Want to see it in action? Connect with us today to see how it works.