Recent innovations are driven mostly by the demand for increased productivity. This has led to the substitution of hardware and physical equipment for cloud-based services and technology in operations like data storage, file sharing, and data security. The usage of the cloud reduces costs for on-premises equipment, boosts accessibility, and protects data loss in the event of hardware failure. Any business that uses digital components must have a cloud security policy in place since they are vulnerable to cyberattacks.
Cloud security
Cloud security is a set of protocols, techniques, and technologies designed to safeguard cloud-based infrastructures from attacks. It lessens the dangers of unauthorised access, data breaches, hostile insider assaults, and distributed denial-of-service attacks (DDoS). The adoption of security solution technologies designed for such objectives increases the likelihood of visibility and safeguarding of cloud computing platforms.
Why is cloud security so important?
With so many individuals utilising the cloud infrastructure, there has been an increase in attacks and the potential of a data breach, undermining the usage of the cloud. The impact of these attacks ranges in severity, ranging from company disruption to financial, reputational, and data loss, among other things. Cloud security is still burdened by issues like visibility, compliance, data privacy, and misconfiguration. As a result, it is critical to take measures to secure the cloud.
5 key strategies to optimize security in the cloud
Optimizing security in the cloud is necessary to mitigate and prevent the risks of attacks and in the event of an occurrence, ensure an efficient disaster response system.
These are some of the key strategies to top your cloud security.
- Have a good cloud security strategy and optimize automation.
A key step to mitigating cloud attacks is to have a good cloud security strategy from the onset. The cloud system must have a secure design structure that is all-encompassing. The strategy should provide solutions to mitigate the risks and disaster recovery solutions in case of a breach. Security information and event management (SIEM) technology would be useful in this regard. It should provide for endpoints security and cloud visibility. Provisions must be made for proper data protection by using data loss prevention tools, access control to data, proper authentication, and encryption to manage vulnerabilities. It is also important to utilize automation. This reduces the risk of human errors and misconfigurations. Automation also helps through continuous monitoring and updates which is necessary as the cloud environment is constantly changing and using human resources in this regard is limited.
2. Ensure constant assessment of cloud data setups and update configuration.
Regular review of cloud data and configuration settings is necessary to find and mitigate vulnerabilities as they arise. This can also be done by deleting or moving old files and conducting periodic misconfiguration tests. It is also important to ensure data security by using encryption and access control policies.
3. Use an optimal access control strategy and monitor user logging.
Oftentimes, cloud breaches occur because of internal persons or end users who have access to the cloud. The use of Identity and Access Management (IAM) and Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) can help to mitigate the risks. Least privilege and zero trust policies should be employed to only permit a user access to necessary assets and proper identification before access is granted. Monitoring cloud visibility also helps to manage risks from access. The use of a Next Generation Firewall could also be employed, this would help with IAM and intrusion detection from unauthorized access. It is also necessary to have an off-boarding process for former employees.
4. Use an efficient service provider and enforce a shared responsibility model.
Good cloud security starts with an efficient cloud service provider with good built-in security protocols and certifications. To ensure data security and access control, it is important to get a service provider that meets the required level of security. There should also be shared responsibility for cloud protection and the tasks required of both parties should be clearly stated to easily trace the point of a breach. A Cloud Access Security Broker which allows enterprises some security control over the cloud is a need-to-have.
5. Educate users on cloud security and ensure compliance with data protection regulations.
It is essential to educate employees and endpoint users on how to spot cyber-attacks, the proper use of cloud tools, and a secure way to share data. This helps to reduce the occasion of breaches from human errors. In addition, endeavouring to comply with data protection regulations helps to protect against breaches.
Cloud computing is largely beneficial and with more people leveraging the innovation, the risk of cybercrimes is on the rise. It becomes imperative to be strategic in adopting cloud security solutions.
How Can Cados Technology Limited Help?
We’ve built strong partnership with industries best solutions provider, AWS, Azure, GCP. TrendMicro, Cisco, Fortinet, and Palo Alto in helping customers across various verticals to improve cloud workload visibility and incident response. We can help your organization too!