What Is Cloud Security? Cloud Security Defined

What Is Cloud Security? Cloud Security Defined

An employee of the cloud service provider could access the data illegally, modify or copy it, and even distribute it to others. To prevent insider attacks, cloud service providers should conduct detailed employee background checks and maintain strict and transparent control of access to servers and IT infrastructure. Cloud security is no singular entity—it’s an entire ecosystem of IT administrators, cloud processes and policies, and security solutions that protect the data and applications that live in the cloud. These security measures are put in place to not just protect the data, but also support regulatory compliance, ensure customers’ privacy, set authentication rules, and more. All the leading cloud providers have aligned themselves with most of the well-known accreditation programs such as PCI 3.2, NIST , HIPAA and GDPR.

Cloud infrastructure supports nearly all aspects of modern computing in all industries and across multiple verticals.

By default, most cloud providers follow best security practices and take active steps to protect the integrity of their servers. However, organizations need to make their own considerations when protecting data, applications, and workloads running on the cloud. The “cloud” or, more specifically, “cloud computing” refers to the process of accessing resources, software, and databases over the Internet and outside the confines of local hardware restrictions.

Data breaches are on the rise worldwide and across cloud platforms – which is why we talk about cloud security within AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud so often. As more and more organizations migrate sensitive information and services to cloud environments, it should drive customers to consider how the cloud will impact their privacy, security, and compliance efforts. Cloud security addresses these evolving threats and provides organizations and individuals with solutions designed to ensure that vital data is kept safe. And with more and more data being moved to the cloud, and considering the legal responsibilities businesses have to their clients’ data, reliable cloud security solutions are becoming absolutely essential. Whereas an all-human cloud monitoring strategy may catch most of the threats that come your way, cloud security eliminates any chance of human error.

This can be due to having a high number of disparate systems working together, or due to a lack of transparency between the business and cloud service provider. Multi-cloud solutions are environments that simultaneously use two or more cloud services from different providers. This means, like hybrid clouds, they are typically a combination of public and private cloud models.

Hear from our experts on the latest trends and best practices to optimize your network visibility and analysis. Make multi-factor authentication mandatory — MFA reduces the risk of account hijacking. Enable traffic monitoring — Unusually high volumes of traffic might be signs of security incidents.

Key Areas Of Cloud Security

The public cloud environment has become a large and highly attractive attack surface for hackers who exploit poorly secured cloud ingress ports in order to access and disrupt workloads and data in the cloud. Malware, Zero-Day, Account Takeover and many other malicious threats have become a day-to-day reality. The customer’s include managing users and their access privileges , the safeguarding of cloud accounts from unauthorized access, the encryption and protection of cloud-based data assets, and managing its security posture . Deterrent Controls – Deterrent controls are designed to discourage nefarious actors from attacking a cloud system. Insider attacks are a source of risk for cloud service providers, so an example of a deterrent control could be a cloud service provider conducting criminal background checks on employees.

Cost of a data breach The Cost of a Data Breach Report explores financial impacts and security measures that can help your organization avoid a data breach, or in the event of a breach, mitigate costs. Your one-stop hub to explore content resources to stay current on the latest in network visibility and analytics. Review the perimeter for exposure to distributed denial-of-service attacks against public-facing cloud interfaces. Each model addresses a different set of business requirements and demands different security measures.

Access Management – Using robust access management and user-level privileges is an easy-to-implement form of cloud computing security. Access to cloud environments, applications, etc. should be issued by role, and audited top cloud security companies frequently. While enterprises may be able to successfully manage and restrict access points across on-premises systems, administering these same levels of restrictions can be challenging in cloud environments.

Through the use of a multi-cloud strategy, your organization can pick and choose providers offering the best price for their services. We are the first company to deliver a unified visibility and analytics architecture across your hybrid infrastructure to simplify, secure and scale IT operations. Our global customers are empowered to transform their businesses and innovate with the power of complete network visibility and analytics. Simplify, secure and scale your hybrid cloud infrastructure to accelerate digital innovation. Plan which data will be in the cloud and how it will be governed — Make sure that you can properly protect any sensitive data you store in the cloud. Some data may need to stay on premises to meet security standards or compliance requirements.

User Authentication And Access Management For Cloud Security

While many types of cloud computing security controls exist, they generally fall into one of four categories. As companies continue to migrate to the cloud, understanding the security requirements for keeping data safe has become critical. While third-party cloud computing providers may take on the management of this infrastructure, the responsibility of data asset security and accountability doesn’t necessarily shift along with it. Establish data access management — Regularly review access rights, especially permissions to your most sensitive data, and revoke any excessive rights. Install intrusion detection and prevention systems — In IaaS environments, implement intrusion detection at the user, network and database layers. In Paas and SaaS environments, intrusion detection is the responsibility of the provider.

The basic principle of Zero Trust in cloud security is not to automatically trust anyone or anything within or outside of the network—and verify (i.e., authorize, inspect and secure) everything. More than 2,100 enterprises around the world rely on Sumo Logic to build, run, and secure their modern applications and cloud infrastructures. The way to approach cloud security is different for every organization and can be dependent on several variables. However, the National Institute of Standards and Technology has made a list of best practices that can be followed to establish a secure and sustainable cloud computing framework. Misconfigured assets accounted for 86% of breached records in 2019, making the inadvertent insider a key issue for cloud computing environments.

Boosting Security And Business Productivity With Hosted Desktops And Hybrid Multicloud Infrastructure

Build an enterprise cloud with hyperconverged compute, storage, virtualization, and networking at the core. Cloud Security Posture Management, consistently applying governance and compliance rules and templates when provisioning virtual servers, auditing for configuration deviations, and remediating automatically where possible. Disaster Recovery – Have a plan and platforms in place for data backup, retention, and recovery. Network Segmentation – For use with multi-tenant SaaS environments, you’ll want to determine, assess, and isolate customer data from your own. Infuse cloud IAM to enable frictionless, secure access for your consumers and workforce. Gigamon reseller and integration partners design, implement and optimize best-of-breed and validated joint solutions.

In addition, Zero Trust networks utilize micro-segmentation to make cloud network security far more granular. Micro-segmentation creates secure zones in data centers and cloud deployments thereby segmenting workloads from each other, securing everything inside the zone, and applying policies to secure traffic between zones. Often cloud user roles are configured very loosely, granting extensive privileges beyond what is intended or required. One common example is giving database delete or write permissions to untrained users or users who have no business need to delete or add database assets. At the application level, improperly configured keys and privileges expose sessions to security risks. Organizations will want to implement several different forms of cloud computing security.

Application-centric visibility and enterprise-grade network microsegmentation for defense-in-depth protection from threats using a Zero Trust Architecture. Effortlessly move apps and data between public, private, and edge clouds for a true hybrid multicloud experience. The misconfigured WAF was apparently permitted to list all the files in any AWS data buckets and read the contents of each file. The misconfiguration allowed the intruder to trick the firewall into relaying requests to a key back-end resource on AWS, according to the Krebs On Security blog.

Sumo Logic addresses and mitigates some of the most important challenges of cloud computing security, including helping IT organizations increase visibility and control of their cloud infrastructure and deployments. The four types of cloud environments are private cloud, public cloud, hybrid cloud, and multi-cloud. These cloud environments are arrangements in which single or multiple cloud services provide a system for enterprises and end users. Cloud environments break up the administration responsibilities, including security, between a service supplier and their client. One of the major challenges that IT organizations face in cloud computing security is a lack of visibility of applications and services that are deployed in cloud environments. A lack of visibility means that the IT organization cannot efficiently collect or aggregate information about the security status of applications and infrastructure that are deployed in the cloud.

Security Monitoring, Logging, and Alerting – Continuous monitoring across all environments and applications is a necessity for cloud computing security. Password Control – As a basic cloud computing security protocol, your team should never allow shared passwords. Passwords should be combined with authentication tools to ensure the greatest level of security. As enterprises embrace these concepts and move toward optimizing their operational approach, new challenges arise when balancing productivity levels and security. While more modern technologies help organizations advance capabilities outside the confines of on-premise infrastructure, transitioning primarily to cloud-based environments can have several implications if not done securely. For businesses who need a reliable cloud solution but who do not have the resources to field their own IT cloud security teams, public cloud security is often the preferred option.

Preventive Controls – Preventive controls make the cloud environment more resilient to attacks by eliminating vulnerabilities. A preventive control could be writing a piece of code that disables inactive ports to ensure that there are no available entry points for hackers. Maintaining a strong user authentication system is another way of reducing vulnerability to attack. It’s easy to lose track of how your data is being accessed and by whom, since many cloud services are accessed outside of corporate networks and through third parties. With the amount of advanced threats and dynamic, targeted attacks that organizations are facing today, cloud security is an essential solution.

• Much like how the cloud can centralize all your applications and data, cloud security can centralize all your protective forces.
• The basic principle of Zero Trust in cloud security is not to automatically trust anyone or anything within or outside of the network—and verify (i.e., authorize, inspect and secure) everything.
• Real-time alerts on intrusions and policy violations shorten times to remediation, sometimes even triggering auto-remediation workflows.
• A lack of visibility means that the IT organization cannot efficiently collect or aggregate information about the security status of applications and infrastructure that are deployed in the cloud.
• This is especially true when one considers the increased remote accessibility offered by cloud solutions.
• Cloud security is a broad term describing the policies, technologies, tools, applications and controls that work together to protect a network’s cloud-based systems, data and infrastructure.
• Regardless of the preventative measures organizations have in place for their on-premise and cloud-based infrastructures, data breaches and disruptive outages can still occur.

In the event of a breach, public clouds may not allow individual businesses to access or review this sensitive data; this is not an issue when working within a privately owned and managed cloud. Security threats have become more advanced as the digital landscape continues to evolve. These threats explicitly target cloud computing providers due to an organization’s overall lack of visibility in data access and movement. Without taking active steps to improve their cloud security, organizations can face significant governance and compliance risks when managing client information, regardless of where it is stored.

What Is Cloud Computing Security?

By moving to cloud computing, all security administration happens in one place and is fully managed without any oversight. Without a proper cloud security strategy in place, companies are more likely than not to face serious security issues in their cloud computing architecture. The following items describe some of the https://globalcloudteam.com/ most common security threats and risks companies may encounter. Deploy business-critical resources and apps in logically isolated sections of the provider’s cloud network, such as Virtual Private Clouds or vNET . Use subnets to micro-segment workloads from each other, with granular security policies at subnet gateways.

In many cloud models, critical data applications can be accessed by authorized individuals from anywhere in the world. And unfortunately, these employees may not always adhere to cybersecurity best practices. In such events, cloud security needs to be able to counter the potential damage caused by employee error. Because sensitive customer and business data is stored in the cloud—and because more organizations are moving to the cloud overall—introducing a cloud security strategy has become imperative. Throughout the years, security criminals have evolved, launching more sophisticated, harder-to-detect attacks on organizations. Regardless of an organization’s cloud of choice, attackers have wisened up to ensure they breach even the biggest companies’ clouds.

Cloud Service Models

Latest in cloud security Read the latest on cloud data protection, containers security, securing hybrid, multicloud environments and more. Another emerging technology in cloud security that supports the execution of NIST’s cybersecurity framework is cloud security posture management . CSPM solutions are designed to address a common flaw in many cloud environments – misconfigurations. Security information and event management provides a comprehensive security orchestration solution that automates threat monitoring, detection, and response in cloud-based environments. This is especially true when one considers the increased remote accessibility offered by cloud solutions.

Data Security

The datacenter operating the private cloud is either maintained by the company or organization itself, or by a hosting provider. Cloud security is a broad term describing the policies, technologies, tools, applications and controls that work together to protect a network’s cloud-based systems, data and infrastructure. Cloud security solutions also help users protect their information from theft, data leakage and other threats. With PaaS, you control the cloud vendor’s platform and execution resources to develop, test, deploy and administer applications. Unlike the IaaS model, you cannot manage or control the underlying cloud infrastructure, including the network, servers, operating systems or storage. But you can deploy your cloud applications to the PaaS infrastructure using programming languages and tools supported by the PaaS provider.

Corrective Controls – Corrective controls are activated in the event of a security attack. A developer might write a piece of code so that when a certain type of threat is detected, data servers are disconnected from the network to prevent data theft. As you work to make your cloud infrastructure as secure as it can be, we encourage you to spend extra time in these five areas so that you can strengthen your overall security posture.

Important Cloud Security Considerations

Within a private cloud, data is maintained in company-owned servers and managed by an on-site IT team and is accessible only to the organization in question. Even in situations where servers are located in off-site data centers, internal teams will access the private cloud via dedicated circuits or managed secure networks, rather than less-secure, unmanaged internet connections. Cloud infrastructures that remain misconfigured by enterprises or even cloud providers can lead to several vulnerabilities that significantly increase an organization’s attack surface. CSPM addresses these issues by helping to organize and deploy the core components of cloud security. These include identity and access management , regulatory compliance management, traffic monitoring, threat response, risk mitigation, and digital asset management. Additionally, organizations can reduce the strain on their own servers by allowing non-critical data to reside in the public cloud, while keeping the more privacy- and latency-sensitive data in-house.