Cloud Infrastructure Entitlements Management (CIEM)

What is CIEM?

Cloud Infrastructure Entitlements Management (CIEM) refers to tools and processes that discover, analyze, and right-size cloud permissions in complex multi-cloud environments. CIEM automates the continuous detection of overprivileged accounts, orphaned roles, and misconfigurations. By mapping who has access to which cloud resources, it identifies gaps that violate least privilege principles.

How does it affect identity security?

In sprawling cloud ecosystems, it’s easy to lose track of entitlements. CIEM solutions highlight risky roles or stale policies that attackers could exploit. They also help with compliance audits by providing a clear, updated picture of all cloud entitlements. By continuously right-sizing privileges, CIEM drastically narrows the attack surface and mitigates lateral movement.

connection with cloud security and iam

CIEM complements built-in cloud IAM by adding advanced analytics, cross-provider visibility, and automated remediation workflows (like removing or downgrading seldom-used permissions). It can integrate with DevOps pipelines to enforce best practices at deployment time. In a multi-cloud scenario, it unifies entitlements from AWS, Azure, GCP, etc., into one console, ensuring consistent policy across diverse platforms.

Case studies

Booz Allen Hamilton left sensitive files in a publicly accessible Amazon S3 bucket. The exposure illustrated how simple misconfiguration can lead to major data leaks. Following incidents like these, many enterprises adopted CIEM to continuously scan for open buckets or dangerous wildcard permissions.

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