Runtime Security vs. Static Security in the Cloud

Cloud security is often divided into two: Runtime Security and Static Security. While both are crucial to protecting cloud environments, they differ significantly in their objectives, methodologies, and effectiveness against different types of threats. Understanding these differences helps organizations build a robust security strategy by leveraging the strengths of both.

Objectives

Static security objectives

Static security focuses on mitigating threats before they happen. It involves analyzing system configurations, vulnerabilities, and policies to identify potential risks and mitigating them or explicitly accepting them. The goal is to harden cloud environments as much as possible, by addressing known threats and misconfigurations before attackers can exploit them.

Runtime security objectives

Runtime security, on the other hand, aims to detect active threats in real time and respond immediately. It monitors live activity in the cloud environment, allowing security teams to react instantly to security incidents. Unlike static security, runtime security is effective against zero-day attacks by identifying anomalous behaviors.

Achieving security objectives

Static security 

Static security improves cloud security by requiring organizations to harden their machines, configurations, and software components. It aligns with the “shift-left” strategy and typically involves:

• Mapping and analyzing cloud infrastructure
  
• Identifying and mitigating Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs)
  
• Ensuring compliance with security policies

While this approach significantly reduces the attack surface, it focuses on known threats that have already been documented.

Runtime security 

Runtime security enhances security by providing real-time threat detection and response. It “shields to the right and typically offers:

• Real-time alerting on active attacks
• Automatic or manual response mechanisms to prevent breaches
• Behavioral analysis that can detect unknown threats
• Rules-based monitoring to detect deviation established criteria 

Since runtime security examines live activity, it can detect and prevent compromises as they happen, making it highly effective against zero-day exploits and advanced persistent threats (APTs).

Pros & Cons

Feature	Static security	Runtime security
Threat visibility	Pre-attack threats (known vulnerabilities)	Active threats (real-time attacks)
Effectiveness	Good for known threats, but misses unknown threats	Effective against both known and unknown threats
Response time	Requires manual patching and mitigation	Instant detection and automated response
Operational overhead	High (constant monitoring and fixes required)	Low (automation reduces manual workload)

User interaction

Static security

Users must regularly patch vulnerabilities and fix misconfigurations to keep their cloud environments secure. This often involves patching software, updating security policies, and enforcing compliance measures.

Runtime security

Runtime security solutions can respond automatically to detected threats. This means that users can focus on high-level security strategy instead of manually addressing every individual threat.

Combining both approaches

How static security benefits from runtime context

Static security can be enhanced by integrating runtime data. For example:

• If runtime security identifies that certain services have high user interactions or are exposed to the internet, security teams can prioritize fixing vulnerabilities in those services first.
  
• This makes vulnerability management more efficient and impact-driven.
  

How Runtime Security Benefits from Static Data

Conversely, runtime security can leverage static security insights:

• By ingesting CVE data and misconfiguration reports, runtime security tools can detect if an attacker is actively exploiting a known vulnerability.
  
• This allows security teams to respond immediately and even automate blocking access to affected components.

Why  you need both?

A thorough cloud security strategy requires both static and runtime security because:

• Static security reduces the attack surface, mitigating the risk of many threats before they can be exploited..
  
• Runtime security detects and responds to real-time attacks, including zero-day exploits.
  
• Together, they provide a comprehensive security strategy that minimizes risk and enhances protection against evolving threats.
  

By combining these two approaches, organizations can build a proactive and reactive security model, ensuring robust protection in the dynamic cloud environment.

Parting words

Cloud security is evolving rapidly, and understanding the differences between runtime and static security is key to building a robust defense against modern threats. Static security focuses on preemptively identifying vulnerabilities and misconfigurations, reducing the attack surface before deployment. Runtime security, however, takes protection to the next level by continuously monitoring live environments, detecting real-time threats, and responding instantly to attacks, including zero-day exploits. Together, these approaches create a comprehensive security framework that combines proactive prevention with reactive defense.

ARMO simplifies this complexity by offering a single cybersecurity platform that integrates both static and runtime security capabilities. With the rise in cloud-native threats and the growing sophistication of cyberattacks, ARMO Platform empowers organizations to protect their workloads dynamically while maintaining compliance and operational efficiency. Try ARMO today to experience how its innovative approach redefines cloud security, ensuring your systems remain secure during both development and active operation.

FAQ

How does ARMO integrate both runtime and static security approaches

ARMO integrates both runtime and static security approaches into a unified platform, enabling comprehensive protection across the entire cloud-native lifecycle. 

Static security is addressed through features like vulnerability management, misconfiguration scanning, and compliance checks during development and deployment phases. These capabilities align with the “shift-left” strategy, ensuring that potential issues are identified and mitigated before workloads go live.

For runtime security or Cloud Application Detection and Response (CADR) , ARMO leverages advanced technologies like eBPF to monitor live application behavior, detect anomalies, and respond to threats in real time.  Which is the “shield-right” strategy.

Furthermore, ARMO Platform creates a feedback loop that enhances both proactive prevention and reactive defense. Providing posture context in runtime allows CADR to account for accepted risks when scanning for security incidents. Providing runtime context for posture management helps users know what configuration changes can be made without breaking applications and informs automated network policy creation and seccomp profile generation.

How does ARMO ensure compliance with multiple compliance frameworks

ARMO Platform provides the full library of Kubescape security controls. These controls map to well-known security frameworks, such as CIS Benchmarks, MITRE ATT&CK and SOC 2.

Users of ARMO Platform can select one or more frameworks to scan against or create their own organizational framework, by selecting the security controls they want to test.