In today’s age of cloud-first strategies and cloud-native applications, the cloud has become an integral part of business operations for businesses of any size. There is no doubt that Cloud offers a convenient way to store, manage, and access data from anywhere, at any time. However, with this convenience comes the responsibility of ensuring that your data is secure. Cloud security is a critical concern, as breaches and data leaks can have severe consequences. Let us define what is cloud security, and also look at some of the best practices in implementing cloud security.
What is Cloud Security?
Cloud security is a discipline of Cyber security that is concerned with establishing a set of security policies, controls, procedures, tools, and technologies designed to protect cloud-based applications, data, and infrastructure from internal and external threats. While Cyber security in its traditional sense was concerned in securing your own infrastructure (either on-premises or in a private data center), Cloud security calls for securing assets that reside often on a third-party service provider’s (Cloud service
Why is Cloud Security important?
Since your workloads are now running on a third-party service provider’s infrastructure on which you have no physical access, Cloud Security plays an important role to ensure that your workloads are not compromised. Since Cloud, by definition, is the delivery of services over the internet, it is important to secure it from unauthorized access. In an increasingly cloud-first world, you are now guaranteed more agility in innovating and deploying your solutions. But it also means that Security has now become more complicated than stopping someone from physically accessing your hardware.
What do I need to secure on Cloud?
The security of a public cloud is based on what is called a Shared Responsibility Model, which is a security framework that prescribes the security obligations of the Cloud Service Provider (CSP) and that of the Customer. What you are responsible for securing in a Shared Responsibility Model varies based on whether you have availed Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS) or Software as a Service (SaaS). In general, the more you are closer to the infrastructure, the more your responsibility is in Cloud Security. Regardless of the type of service, securing your data on Cloud is always your responsibility.
What is the top security threat on Cloud?
While the kind of threats in Cloud Security is continuously evolving, Misconfiguration of the cloud services has often been the number one security threat on Cloud. When seen in the light of the challenges faced by organizations in finding resources with the right skills to deploy, configure and manage workloads on cloud, it is not difficult to understand why misconfiguration has remained the number one security threat for a long time now.
What are some of Cloud Security Best Practices?
Following are some of the best practices in implementing Cloud Security: –
- Do Peer Reviews and Audits to look out for Security misconfigurations.
- Conduct trainings and refresher courses for employees on Cloud Security best practices.
- Adopt a strong, granular IAM policy to control who has access to what.
- Follow a Zero-Trust model. Avoid implicit trust in any connection, be it internal or external.
- Employ the principle of least privilege (PoLP).
- Use Multifactor authentication (MFA) wherever possible.
- Encrypt data in transit as well as at rest.
- Adopt cloud edge security protections, including firewalls, IPSes and antimalware.
- Log and monitor all aspects of data access, additions and changes.
- Routinely perform Vulnerability assessment and remediation.
- Store application passwords and database connection information in an encrypted vault provided by the cloud service provider.
Conclusion
Cloud security is a shared responsibility between the cloud service provider and the user. By following these best practices, you can significantly reduce the risk of data breaches and security incidents in your cloud environment. Remember that security is an ongoing process, so stay vigilant, adapt to evolving threats, and keep your data safe in the cloud.
