For today’s cloud-native enterprises, “security by default” is a dangerously misleading concept. Many digital-native organizations, whose entire operations are built and run in the cloud, may assume that the inherent security of cloud platforms is sufficient to protect their business. But the reality is far more nuanced, and the risks are significant for those who overlook foundational security responsibilities.
For businesses born in the cloud, security gaps are amplified. Operating entirely in cloud environments introduces new challenges that traditional security models were never designed to address. As these organizations scale and innovate at cloud speed, they face a landscape where security must be engineered into every layer, not simply inherited from the infrastructure provider.
At the heart of many cloud breaches is a misunderstanding of the shared responsibility model. Cloud providers like AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud are responsible for securing the infrastructure - the servers, networks, and physical data centers. But securing what lives in the cloud - applications, configurations, workloads, and data - is the customer’s responsibility.
For enterprises operating in hybrid or multi-cloud environments, this blurred line becomes a risk vector in itself. Without direct control over the underlying infrastructure, organizations must rethink how they monitor, detect, and respond to threats. And they need to do it in real-time, across environments that are constantly scaling, shifting, and evolving.
This is where the traditional playbook falls apart.
Too often, cloud security is siloed from traditional SecOps. Different tools, different teams, and different telemetry streams result in disjointed workflows and inconsistent threat detection. A cloud-native workload might be invisible to the legacy SIEM, while on-prem alerts remain untouched by cloud-centric tools.
This fragmentation creates blind spots - making it harder for CISOs to answer fundamental questions like:
Legacy SIEMs weren’t designed to handle today’s velocity or volume of data. They’re expensive to scale, inefficient at processing unstructured telemetry, and often lack real-time analytics. Most struggle to support:
To address these challenges, forward-thinking organizations are turning to security data lakes as a foundational element of their cloud security strategy.
A security data lake is a centralized repository that allows organizations to store vast amounts of structured and unstructured data at scale. They ingest, normalize, correlate, and store massive volumes of telemetry - spanning on-prem systems, multi-cloud infrastructure, SaaS platforms, and third-party threat intel.
Unlike legacy SIEMs, which are optimized for ingestion cost and short-term storage, data lakes are built for scale, flexibility, and long-term value. Here's how they secure your environment:
By centralizing telemetry and enabling intelligent analytics, data lakes give CISOs a single source of truth for both reactive and proactive security operations.
To maximize value from a security data lake, consider these key architectural and operational best practices:
Ensure your lake aggregates telemetry across all environments - cloud, on-prem, containers, SaaS apps, identity systems, IoT devices, and more. True visibility means nothing is left out. To achieve this:
Security doesn’t stop at visibility; it requires continuous monitoring and proactive threat management. Integrate your data lake with Managed Detection and Response (MDR) workflows to:
This integration ensures that your organization stays ahead of adversaries while minimizing manual intervention.
Use data engineering to control what you ingest, transform it as needed, and route it to the right tools - reducing costs and enabling agile response.
Enter Netenrich - a cybersecurity firm that brings an engineering-led approach to building and operating security data lakes for modern enterprises.
Rather than relying on outdated tools, Netenrich combines cloud-scale telemetry with intelligent analytics and workflow automation to create a next-generation security architecture.
Netenrich enables organizations to orchestrate telemetry collection at scale, applying cost-aware data ingestion strategies that prioritize high-value signals. You get control over what to keep, where to store it, and how to use it.
Ingest petabytes of data from any source - cloud platforms, endpoints, OT/IoT devices - and build custom integrations aligned with your business objectives and risk tolerance.
Leverage centralized, automated case management to help SOC teams respond faster and more consistently. Playbooks are enriched with context from across your telemetry to reduce triage time and increase impact.
Netenrich merges the capabilities of security data lakes with a data-driven strategy for threat detection and response. It’s not just about storage - it’s about insight, efficiency, and actionability.
Through its partnership with Google Cloud, Netenrich integrates with BigQuery, delivering cloud-native analytics at scale. This allows security teams to:
Cloud Software Group (CSG) provides a powerful example of how Netenrich + BigQuery can transform security operations.
The challenge: CSG was struggling with fragmented visibility, siloed workflows, and slow response times across a sprawling hybrid infrastructure.
The solution: Implement Netenrich’s Adaptive MDR platform powered by a centralized data lake and BigQuery analytics.
The results:
This transformation illustrates the power of bringing together data, automation, and analytics in a cohesive architecture.
Get the case story here: https://netenrich.com/citrix-splunk-to-netenrich-mdr-case-study
In the world of hybrid and multi-cloud operations, yesterday’s tools and approaches won’t cut it. CISOs need centralized visibility, real-time analytics, and automation-ready platforms that evolve as fast as their environments. Netenrich offers a compelling path forward with an engineering-led approach to cloud security.
As a top-tier certified Google Services Delivery Partner, Netenrich brings deep expertise across the Google SecOps ecosystem. Netenrich’s capabilities span:
By uniting these advanced tools and services, Netenrich empowers organizations to operationalize cloud-scale security, accelerate threat detection and response, and maximize the value of their security data lake investments-all on a foundation built for the future.