Before you can secure the cloud, you need to know what’s in the cloud. Cloud computing is designed to be easy to use, which means that even non-technical employees can create accounts and upload sensitive data to it. Cloud does what it can to help, but poorly secured cloud storage is still a major cause of data breaches. Need to do the research necessary to find any unauthorized (and potentially insecure) cloud accounts containing company data.
A CSP’s “as a Service” offerings sacrifice visibility for convenience. When using a cloud service, you lose visibility into and control over the underlying infrastructure, a situation that is very different from an on-premises deployment. Your applications may be deployed over multiple cloud instances and on servers in different sites and even different regions, making it more difficult to define clear security boundaries.
Once you have a solid understanding of your cloud deployment, the next step is working to secure it. The concept of network segmentation to minimize the impact of a breach is nothing new, but many organizations are at a loss on how to do it in the cloud. While securing all of your application’s traffic within a particular cloud infrastructure (like AWS) or securing traffic between applications and external networks is a good start, it’s simply not enough. In the cloud, it’s necessary to implement micro-segmentation, defining policies at the application level.
The success of Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) solutions demonstrates the effectiveness and importance of collating security data into an easy-to-use format for the security team. Many data breaches are enabled by a lack of understanding of the protected system or an inability to effectively analyze and cross-reference alert data. Humans operate most effectively when dealing with visual data, and Central is designed to provide your security team with the information that they need to secure your cloud deployment. Central threat detection and response technology uses dynamic detection, reputation analysis, and policy-based detection to draw analysts’ attention to where it is needed most.
Migration to cloud environments does not have to happen overnight. As with any digital security initiative, it is crucial to plan the entire process, mapping all the advantages and challenges, processes, and information.
Moving platforms or data to the cloud is a long-term decision and must be taken with care. In addition, a cloud migration will directly impact your security policies and practices, which will need to be reviewed – including the fact that your team will need to more training on how to properly use the cloud and how it relates to your updated security policies and procedures.
Unlike a private network, the cloud is the external network, where the controls will be positioned to establish the perimeter. That’s why it’s important to audit and redefine your user privileges in the cloud. This includes permission levels for internal users, partners, and vendors.
If it is your first investment with the cloud, you can take a calculated step with a pilot project or proof of concept, migrating only one specific initiative. This will help you understand how using the cloud will impact your business.
In all cases, ensuring that encryption is used on any data is indisputable. Even when using cloud services and applications, your data will likely travel between the private and public cloud, and the use of encrypted channels is essential.
Creating a document to guide your team in preparing and recovering from security events within the cloud will also be critical to your cloud migration initiative.
Keeping and evaluating logs for all cloud activities will be instrumental in understanding the status of your security in a hybrid cloud environment and will also help you create your incident recovery plan.
