Cloud computing involves storing and accessing data and applications over the internet often through third-party service providers. As cloud computing becomes more prevalent and essential for businesses and individuals, ensuring the security of your data and applications in the cloud is paramount.
Overcoming Common Hurdles to Securing the Cloud
Reduced Budgets
Many organizations face budget constraints and financial challenges. As a result, they may look for cost-cutting measures across various areas, including IT and cybersecurity.
Emphasis on Remote Work Security
As more employees work from home or other remote locations, organizations must prioritize remote access to cloud resources and data security.
Increased Cybersecurity Threats
Cyber threat actors (CTAs) may exploit insufficient authorization, overlapping trust boundaries, and other vulnerabilities in the cloud to distribute malware and conduct denial of service (DoS) attacks.
Easy Backups and Recovery
Cloud data security can offer a number of solutions and features to help automate and standardize backups, freeing your teams from monitoring manual backups and troubleshooting problems.
Enhanced Risk Management
Cloud security professionals conduct thorough assessments of an organization’s cloud infrastructure to identify potential vulnerabilities, threats, and compliance gaps. By leveraging their expertise, organizations can gain valuable insights into potential risks and can develop a robust risk management strategy to address these concerns effectively.
Tailored Security Solutions
Each organization has unique cloud security requirements based on its industry, size, and data sensitivity. Cloud security professionals provide tailored solutions that align with these specific needs. They design and implement security frameworks, recommend suitable security controls, and develop incident response plans that align with the organization's objectives and compliance standards.
Continuous Monitoring and Threat Detection
Professional services ensure continuous monitoring of cloud environments, leveraging advanced tools and technologies to detect potential security threats in real time. By implementing robust monitoring solutions, organizations gain insights into any suspicious activities, unauthorized access attempts, or potential data breaches. This allows them to respond swiftly and effectively, minimizing the impact of security incidents.
Compliance and Regulatory Adherence
Cloud security professionals possess in-depth knowledge of various industry-specific compliance regulations and can help organizations adhere to these standards. They guide aligning cloud security practices with regulatory requirements such as GDPR, HIPAA, PCI DSS, and more. This ensures that organizations maintain compliance while leveraging the benefits of cloud computing.
Incident Response and Disaster Recovery
In the event of a security breach or other incidents, cloud security professionals handle incident response and disaster recovery procedures. They develop incident response plans, conduct breach investigations, perform data forensics, and ensure swift recovery while minimizing potential damage to the organization's reputation and operations.
Easy Backups and Recovery
Cloud data security can offer a number of solutions and features to help automate and standardize backups, freeing your teams from monitoring manual backups and troubleshooting problems.
Enhanced Risk Management
Cloud security professionals conduct thorough assessments of an organization’s cloud infrastructure to identify potential vulnerabilities, threats, and compliance gaps. By leveraging their expertise, organizations can gain valuable insights into potential risks and can develop a robust risk management strategy to address these concerns effectively.
Tailored Security Solutions
Each organization has unique cloud security requirements based on its industry, size, and data sensitivity. Cloud security professionals provide tailored solutions that align with these specific needs. They design and implement security frameworks, recommend suitable security controls, and develop incident response plans that align with the organization's objectives and compliance standards.
Continuous Monitoring and Threat Detection
Professional services ensure continuous monitoring of cloud environments, leveraging advanced tools and technologies to detect potential security threats in real time. By implementing robust monitoring solutions, organizations gain insights into any suspicious activities, unauthorized access attempts, or potential data breaches. This allows them to respond swiftly and effectively, minimizing the impact of security incidents.
Compliance and Regulatory Adherence
Cloud security professionals possess in-depth knowledge of various industry-specific compliance regulations and can help organizations adhere to these standards. They guide aligning cloud security practices with regulatory requirements such as GDPR, HIPAA, PCI DSS, and more. This ensures that organizations maintain compliance while leveraging the benefits of cloud computing.
Incident Response and Disaster Recovery
In the event of a security breach or other incidents, cloud security professionals handle incident response and disaster recovery procedures. They develop incident response plans, conduct breach investigations, perform data forensics, and ensure swift recovery while minimizing potential damage to the organization's reputation and operations.
Lift and Shift
In lift and shift, you take the servers and applications running in your on-premises data center and re-host them in the cloud. This can be the easiest way to migrate to the cloud.
Refactoring
Refactoring requires you to modify on-premises infrastructure, code, and deployments so that you might take advantage of the cloud's elasticity. As part of this method, you can use managed services and Platform as a Service (PaaS) offerings to scale your computing resources up and down based on demand instead of building a web farm to support peak load, thus saving you money.
Redesigning to Be Cloud Native
Redesigning to be cloud native can be a complex migration strategy, as you must redesign your applications' architecture to take full advantage of the benefits of the cloud. This includes utilizing SaaS offerings, managed services (PaaS), containers and serverless computing, and an Infrastructure as Code (IAC) philosophy.
Data Protection
Ensure that the data stored on cloud remains confidential, maintains its integrity, and is available to authorized users. Encryption, access controls, and data backup are crucial data protection components.
Identity and Access Management (IAM)
Properly manage user identities, access levels, and permissions essential in preventing unauthorized access to sensitive data and resources.
Authentication and Authorization
Robust authentication mechanisms (e.g., multi-factor authentication) and fine-grained authorization controls help ensure that only authorized users can access specific resources.
Network Security
Secure the communication channels between cloud service providers, users, and applications to prevent data breaches and unauthorized interception of data.
Infrastructure Security
Cloud service providers must ensure the physical and virtual infrastructure that underpins their cloud services is well-protected against threats and vulnerabilities.
Compliance and Legal Concerns
Address regulatory compliance requirements and adhere to relevant data protection laws and industry standards.
Incident Response and Monitoring
Implement systems for detecting, responding to, and mitigating security incidents promptly to minimize the impact of potential breaches.
Secure APIs
Ensure that Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) used to access cloud services are secured to prevent unauthorized access and data leakage.
Cloud Provider Security
Evaluate cloud service providers' security measures and practices before choosing a provider, as the responsibility for security may vary between the provider and the customer (shared responsibility model).
Data Privacy
Maintain data privacy and control data sharing to avoid exposing sensitive information unintentionally.
Our CIS Controls v8.1 Cloud Companion Guide includes practical guidance and unique considerations for implementing CIS Critical Security Controls (CIS Controls) v8.1 in your cloud environments, thus strengthening your defenses against common cyber threats in the cloud.
DOWNLOAD Our GUIDE
Foundational Cloud Security with CIS Benchmarks™
CIS Foundations Benchmarks provide prescriptive guidance for hardening your identity and access management, logging and monitoring, and networking settings on Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure Cloud, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI).
DOWNLOAD Our White Paper
Cloud Security Posture Management with Pre-Hardened VM Images
With CIS Hardened Images®, you can conform to the secure recommendations of the CIS Benchmarks while defending against common threats, minimizing instances of human error, and managing your cloud security posture for just pennies on the dollar per compute hour.
Get Started Today
Cloud Security and the Shared Responsibility Model
Our white paper explains how you can fulfill your security responsibilities in the cloud using the CIS Critical Security Controls (CIS Controls), CIS Benchmarks™, and CIS Hardened Images®.
DOWNLOAD Our White PaperUpcoming Speaking Events
Find out where the CIS team will be speaking about cloud security.
