Quick Start — Set Up WatchGuard CloudDR

Applies To: WatchGuard CloudDR

WatchGuard Cloud Detection and Response (CloudDR) is a cloud‑native security solution designed to help Managed Service Providers (MSPs) and their customers detect, prioritize, and address potential security risks in their cloud applications. This quick start topic provides new users with the basic steps to set up and configure CloudDR.

Before You Begin

Before you can use CloudDR, make sure that:

You can also start a free 30-day trial of CloudDR. Contact your Service Provider to start a trial. Service Providers can start a trial from the Overview > Administration > Trials page. For more information, go to Start a Trial – Service Providers.

Open the CloudDR Management UI

From WatchGuard Cloud, you can open the CloudDR management UI from an account with CloudDR users allocated to it. The CloudDR management UI opens in a new tab. What you can see and do in the CloudDR management UI depends on your WatchGuard Cloud account and operator role.

WatchGuard Cloud Account and Role CloudDR Permissions
Service Provider - Owner Read/Write
Service Provider - Sales Read Only
Service Provider - Helpdesk Read/Write
Service Provider - Auditor Read Only
Subscriber - Administrator Read/Write
Subscriber - Analyst Read/Write
Subscriber - Observer Read Only

Organizations in CloudDR are the WatchGuard Cloud accounts you manage with a CloudDR license. Service Providers can switch between different organizations in the CloudDR management UI. The CloudDR management UI data updates to reflect data for the organization you select.

To open the management UI, in WatchGuard Cloud.

  1. From Account Manager, select the account you want to open the CloudDR management UI for.
    This account is the organization selected in the CloudDR management UI.
  2. Select Monitor > CloudDR or Configure > CloudDR.
    The Dashboard page of the CloudDR management UI opens in a new tab.

If you log in to WatchGuard Cloud and more than 15 minutes pass before you attempt to open the CloudDR management UI, you might be prompted to re-enter your WatchGuard Cloud credentials.

To get started with CloudDR, complete these high-level steps:

Step 1: Configure Integration with Your Main Application Suite

The first time you open the CloudDR management UI, the dashboard is empty. To get started, configure integration with your main application suite:

When you complete integration, CloudDR tries to retrieve information from the application suite. If there are a large number of files, this process can continue in the background. The connection status shows in the application widget. When CloudDR is able to retrieve the required information, the status shows as Success. When connected, CloudDR continuously retrieves required information from the application suite.

Configure IdP Integration (Optional)

If your organization uses a third-party IdP, you can integrate CloudDR with it to take advantage of access-related security rules and enable CloudDR to highlight access issues. If your organization does not use an IdP, you can skip this step.

For more information, go to:

Step 2: Integrate Cloud Applications

Integration of your main application suite provides a significant amount of security information to CloudDR. If your organization uses additional cloud applications, integrate them with CloudDR to enhance visibility and control across your cloud environment.

CloudDR supports integration with many cloud and MSP-specific applications. For more information, go to About WatchGuard CloudDR Integrations.

Step 3: Review Your Overall Security Posture

The Dashboard page in WatchGuard CloudDR provides a centralized, high-level view of an organization’s cloud application security posture. The dashboard includes key metrics across applications, discovered apps, identities, and shared data. Review your overall security posture on the dashboard.

From the dashboard, you can:

  • Monitor overall security health using the Security Score, which summarizes how well your environment aligns with recommended security practices.
  • Review asset coverage, including:
    • Managed applications and their configuration check status
    • Discovered applications and how many are secured
    • Identities and the percentage protected by security controls
    • Shared data and passed sharing checks
  • Track open issues by severity, with breakdowns across configurations, discovered applications, and identities to help prioritize remediation.
  • Identify trends over time, such as changes in open issues over the last 30 days.
  • Visualize threat activity geographically.
  • Review the latest detected threats with information about severity and affected applications.

For more information, go to About the WatchGuard CloudDR Dashboard.

Step 4: Review Discovered Applications

The dashboard includes information about discovered applications (shadow IT) and how many are secured. On the Inventory > Discovered Applications page, you can review a list of the discovered applications. The list shows crucial and security analyst-curated information about applications that are not otherwise easily accessible to administrators and security personnel.

For more information, go to Discovered Applications Inventory.

Step 5: Review Issues

Over time, the Issues page in CloudDR will show issues detected in areas such as:

  • Misconfigurations
  • Discovered Apps
  • Identity
  • Data

On the Issues > Use Cases page, you can review active use cases and the number of open issues. You can also review and fix identified issues. For more information, go to Use Cases for Issues in WatchGuard CloudDR.

Related Topics

About WatchGuard Cloud Detection and Response