The speed of cloud computing has permanently reshaped enterprise IT, but it is also revealing new layers of vulnerabilities. Modern organizations run thousands of workloads across AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud while orchestrating containers, microservices, and APIs that change by the minute. Security teams face a paradox: Every innovation that accelerates the development process also multiplies risk.
Agent-based protection was the foundation of the vision, but installing and maintaining agents across constantly changing environments is time-consuming and annoying. “Security teams are being asked to move faster as their attack surface expands, whether they like it or not,” he said. Jill Gironco-founder and CEO of Orca Security. “They need efficiency and speed to keep up with the pace of innovation.”
The first approach is without an agent
This tension drives interest in agentless security. Orca’s “first agent” model uses his patent SideScan™ A technology to collect telemetry directly from cloud providers through APIs rather than software on the device. The goal: full visibility of the environment in minutes, with no installation or downtime required.
This approach allows security teams to continually examine workloads and configurations without slowing down engineers deploying new features. It also reduces blind spots in hybrid environments where not every asset can host a proxy. Orca operates as a Cloud Native Application Protection Platform (CNAPP), unifying cloud posture management, workload protection, identity monitoring, and data security posture.
Context as the new currency
The biggest challenge in cloud defense is not collecting data, but connecting it. The Orca platform prioritizes contextual relationships: Linking the workload exposed to the Internet to its permissions and the data it touches. A single misconfiguration only becomes urgent when it connects to sensitive information or privileged credentials.
Geron describes this as the difference between information and insight. “Every piece of data we collect, we correlate and correlate to create understanding,” he said. “Context is what turns a question like ‘Do I have any open containers online to store credit cards?’ into an actionable answer.”
By linking assets, vulnerabilities and identity structures, the platform produces visual narratives of risks rather than isolated lists of alerts. For teams experiencing resource drain, shifting from noise to meaning helps focus processing where it matters most.
Aligning security and innovation
Geron argues that modern security is not about slowing down innovation, but about enabling it safely. He points to increased alignment between security and engineering teams: “For the first time, adopting new technology can make you more secure. Using pipelines and automation actually reduces production issues because we can inspect them before deployment.”
This philosophy contrasts with the historical dynamic where security was an obstacle to progress. By automating scanning within CI/CD pipelines, Orca and similar tools allow teams to deploy faster while maintaining oversight. The net effect is not just reduced friction, but cultural change: security becomes a collaborator, not a hindrance.
Balancing simplicity and depth
Agentless platforms face limits. It relies on cloud provider telemetry, which cannot always capture deep runtime behavior. Many organizations combine agentless visibility with selective agents for specialized analysis. But the appeal of simplicity remains strong. As Geron points out, “People are tired of having more and more tools. They want solutions that work for them, not solutions that they have to work for.”
This consolidation trend mirrors the broader CNAPP movement identified by Gartner and IDC, both of which forecast rapid adoption of integrated cloud security suites. Organizations are shifting from an accumulation of tools to standardized systems that emphasize correlation and automation rather than manual investigation.
Towards intelligent cloud defense
The industry’s trajectory points toward intelligent, context-aware defence. Platforms like Orca don’t eliminate human experience, they enhance it. Giron sees parallels in how AI is reshaping security roles: “It’s not replacing junior analysts, it’s making them more productive and accurate.” By surfacing relevant insights, AI acts as a co-pilot that augments rather than replaces human judgment.
Ultimately, Orca’s evolution embodies a larger change in mindset. Cloud security has become less about timely inspection and more about ongoing understanding. In an environment where vision gaps can appear in seconds, the ability to relate, contextualize, and collaborate may be the most valuable protection of all.
(tags for translation) Artificial Intelligence Agent
