Cloud security is the set of practices and controls used to protect data, identities, configurations, and workloads hosted in cloud services such as SaaS, IaaS, and PaaS. It includes identity and access management, encryption, network segmentation, logging, workload hardening, and continuous configuration monitoring. In cloud environments, security depends heavily on permissions and policy, because a misconfigured role or exposed storage bucket can reveal far more than a single compromised host.
It matters because attackers often target cloud accounts rather than cloud infrastructure itself. Common attack paths include stolen credentials, overly broad permissions, abused API keys, and insecure integrations between services. Defenders use cloud security tools to detect risky configurations, enforce least privilege, monitor telemetry, and investigate unusual access patterns. Strong cloud security helps reduce blast radius, keep sensitive data controlled, and make identity-driven attacks harder to execute.