Organizations today want the accessibility and flexibility of the cloud, but if you can’t operate it securely, these benefits ultimately make little sense. A misconfigured server may cause financial or reputation damage to your company, which can take several years to overcome.
Fortunately, there is no reason why
cloud computing cannot be done safely. You need to recognize the most critical
cloud security challenges and develop strategies to minimize these risks. By doing this, you can be one step ahead of the problem and help ensure that your security posture is sufficient to keep your core assets safe in any environment.
With this in mind, let’s dive into the five most pressing cloud security challenges facing modern organizations.
Five key cloud security challenges and how to overcome them
1. The dangers of cloud migration
According to Gartner, the shift to cloud computing will generate approximately $1.3 trillion in IT spending by 2022. Today, the vast majority of enterprise workloads run in public, private, or hybrid cloud environments.
However, if the organization moves blindly without making safety its primary consideration, then critical assets may not be protected and exposed to potential dangers. To ensure that the migration does not create unnecessary risks, you must:
Migrate in stages, starting with non-critical or redundant data. In this process, errors tend to occur more easily. Therefore, start to move data that will not cause destructive consequences to the enterprise, in case the data is destroyed or deleted.
Fully understand the security practices of cloud providers. Go beyond "reputation trust" and truly mine data storage and protection methods.
Maintain operational continuity and data integrity. Once migration occurs, it is important to ensure that the control is still running and will not interfere with business operations.
Manage the risks associated with lack of visibility and control during the migration. Using intrusion and attack simulation software is an effective method of risk management. These automated solutions initiate continuous simulation attacks by identifying hidden vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and user activities (which can be exploited) to see your environment through the eyes of the adversary. This continuous monitoring provides a significant advantage during the migration process-during this process, IT personnel are usually very nervous, learn new concepts, and have poor visibility into operating key assets.
2. Need to master Identity and Access Management (IAM)
Effective management and definition of the roles, privileges and responsibilities of various network users is an important goal of maintaining strong security. This means granting the right users the right access to the right assets in the right context.
With the coming and going of staff and changing roles, this task can be a considerable challenge, especially in a cloud environment, where data can be accessed from anywhere. Fortunately, technology has improved our ability to track activities, adjust roles, and implement policies in a way that minimizes risks.
Today’s organizations do not lack end-to-end solutions for identity governance and management. However, it is important to understand that these tools alone will not solve the problem. Human product management can never provide perfect product management protection. To help support smart identity and access management, a layered and proactive approach must be adopted to manage and mitigate the inevitable security breaches.
Steps such as practicing the principle of least privilege by allowing only the minimum amount of access required to perform the task will greatly enhance your security posture.
3. Risks from supplier relationships
The explosive growth of cloud computing highlights a new and deeper relationship between enterprises and suppliers, as enterprises seek to maximize efficiency through outsourcing, and suppliers play a more important role in business operations. Effectively managing supplier relationships in a cloud environment is a core challenge for companies moving forward.
Why? Because integrating third-party vendors usually greatly increases network security risks. A 2018 study by the Ponemon Institute pointed out that nearly 60% of the companies surveyed had breached contracts due to third parties. The APT Group has adopted a strategy to target large enterprises through these smaller partners, whose security is often weak. The opponent knows that you are the strongest only in your weakest link, and you have the least resistance when you compromise your assets. Therefore, organizations today have a responsibility to vigorously and securely manage third-party vendor relationships in the cloud. This means developing appropriate guidelines for SaaS operations (including procurement and procurement solutions), and conducting regular supplier security assessments.
4. API insecure problem
API is the key to successful cloud integration and interoperability. However, insecure APIs are also one of the most significant threats to cloud security. Attackers can use open communication channels and compromise APIs to steal valuable private data. How often does this happen? Consider this: Gartner predicts that by 2022, insecure APIs will become the most commonly used vehicle for target enterprise application data.
As APIs become more and more important, attackers will continue to use strategies such as exploiting insufficient authentication or planting vulnerabilities in open source code, creating the possibility of destructive supply chain attacks. In order to minimize the occurrence of this situation, developers should consider proper authentication and access control when designing APIs, and seek to maintain as much visibility as possible in the corporate security environment. This will allow rapid identification and remediation of such API risks.
5. Deal with limited user visibility
We have mentioned visibility many times in this article-for good reason. This is one of the keys to safe operation in the cloud. The ability to distinguish between friends and enemies (or authorized users and unauthorized users) is a prerequisite for cloud protection. Unfortunately, as cloud environments become larger, busier, and more complex, this is a challenging task.
Controlling shadow IT through behavioral analysis and other tools and maintaining better user visibility should be the top priority for organizations. Given the lack of visibility across many contexts in a cloud environment, it is wise to develop a security posture dedicated to continuous improvement and supported by continuous testing and monitoring.
Key cloud security challenges: Implications
As long as you understand, foresee, and solve the most significant challenges brought about by migration and operations, cloud security is achievable. By following the ideas outlined above, your organization will be in a stronger position that even the most determined opponent can stop and defeat.
