CSPM continuously checks your cloud accounts against secure configuration baselines and flags the settings that would expose data or grant more access than intended.
The short answer
Cloud security posture management, or CSPM, connects to AWS, Azure or GCP, builds an inventory of what exists, compares each resource against secure baselines and compliance frameworks, and reports misconfigurations. It watches configuration rather than traffic, which is why it catches the exposure before anyone exploits it.
Cloud breaches usually start with a setting rather than an exploit: a storage bucket left public, a security group open to the internet, a role with far broader permissions than the workload needs.
On this page
What CSPM checks
How it works
CSPM connects through read-only API access rather than agents. Once connected it inventories every resource, evaluates each against a rule set, and reports what fails. Because the cloud provider exposes configuration through an API, the check can run continuously instead of on a schedule.
| Stage | What happens |
|---|---|
| Connect | Read-only role granted in each cloud account, across all regions |
| Inventory | Every resource discovered, including ones created outside your infrastructure code |
| Evaluate | Configuration compared against baselines such as CIS benchmarks and framework requirements |
| Prioritise | Findings ranked by exposure, for example public and holding data versus internal only |
| Remediate | Guided fix, and re-evaluation to confirm the setting actually changed |
The drift problem it solves
Infrastructure code sets the intended state. Console changes made during an incident, a migration or a late release quietly diverge from it. CSPM sees the account as it actually is, not as the repository says it should be.
How it differs from other cloud tools
| Tool | Looks at |
|---|---|
| CSPM | Configuration of cloud resources and accounts |
| CWPP | What is running inside workloads: hosts, containers, functions |
| CIEM | Cloud entitlements specifically, and who can reach what |
| WAF | Live traffic reaching the application, blocking attacks in flight |
How Osto runs CSPM
Osto provides multi-cloud posture management across AWS, Azure and GCP, with continuous misconfiguration detection and evidence mapped to the compliance frameworks you are working towards. Because CSPM sits in the same platform as the WAF, endpoint control, IAM and SIEM, a misconfiguration can be read next to what is actually happening on that resource, which is the difference between a finding and an incident.
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Frequently asked questions
What does CSPM stand for?
Cloud security posture management. It refers to tools that continuously assess cloud account configuration against secure baselines and compliance requirements, and report the settings that create exposure.
Is CSPM the same as a cloud vulnerability scan?
No. A vulnerability scan looks for known software weaknesses. CSPM looks at configuration: permissions, exposure, encryption settings and logging. A fully patched environment can still be wide open because of a single misconfigured policy.
Does CSPM need agents?
No. It uses read-only API access to the cloud account. Workload protection tools that inspect processes inside a host or container do use agents, but posture management does not.