AI-Driven Proactive Cloud Application Data Access Security

Abstract

The widespread adoption of cloud applications, accelerated by remote work demands, introduces new security challenges. Traditional approaches struggle to keep pace with the growing volume of cloud applications, keeping track of their user activities and countering potential threats. This paper proposes a novel user access security system for cloud applications. The system leverages user activity tracking tied to user, device, and contextual identity data. By incorporating Identity Provider (IdP) information, Natural Language Processing (NLP), and Machine Learning algorithms (ML), the system builds user baselines and tracks deviations to bubble up critical deviations to the surface and proactively prevent further worsening in real-time, working in conjunction with security orchestration, automation, and response (SOAR) tools. Deviations from the baselines, which may indicate compromised accounts or malicious intent, trigger proactive interventions. This approach offers organizations superior visibility and control over their cloud applications, enabling proactive and real-time threat detection and data breach prevention. While real- time data collection from application vendors remains a challenge, near-real-time is made feasible today. The system can also effectively utilize IdP logs, activity logs from proxies, or firewalls. This research addresses the critical need for proactive security measures in the dynamic landscape of cloud application data security. The system will need a quarter (90 days) of learning time to ensure accurate detections based on historically gathered data and protect them for future baseline predictions on the user themselves and as well as on their peers. This approach ensures the detection is contextually aware of the organization as a whole. This research completely redefines traditional thinking with decentralized intelligence across the system that has a highly scalable microservice architecture. The proposed solution is a uniquely intelligent system where both human and artificial intelligence coexist, with the ultimate overriding control lying with humans (admin). This way, the outcomes at every stage are effective, making the overall detection and proactive security effective.