Cloud security has always been a concern amongst businesses—a recent survey in the UK found 58% decision makers citing security as the number one barrier for Cloud adoption. Given that Cloud adoption has suddenly accelerated during the pandemic and many business-critical applications are running in the Cloud, the focus has shifted to how best to employ security practices.
To understand security concerns, consider the pace of Cloud adoption starkly evident in AWS CEO Andy Jassy’s observation at 2020 re-Invent,
When you look back on the history of the Cloud, it will turn out that the pandemic accelerated Cloud adoption by several years.
Small wonder with surging adoption, security breaches is on the rise. An IDC survey conducted in 2020 across 300 senior IT security decision makers finds 79% of the respondents experienced Cloud data security in the past 18 months and 43% experienced 10 or more breaches.
Cloud Security is Different but Easier
Public Cloud presents a different security reality as it does not have clear perimeters particularly when adopting modern Cloud approaches such as DevOps automation, distributed serverless architectures and ephemeral assets like Functions-as-a-Service and containers.
Crucially, organizations make a fundamental mistake in assuming the Cloud provider is entirely responsible for security. Cloud security is a shared responsibility between the provider and the customer wherein the provider is responsible for securing the Cloud infrastructure and users are responsible for configuring the Cloud and securing applications and data.
And therein lies the catch as most Cloud breaches are due to misconfiguration errors which include managing access privileges and safeguarding accounts. In fact, security misconfiguration is the foremost concern in the IDC survey amongst 67% of the respondents, followed by lack of visibility at 64% and IAM misconfiguration at 61%.
The irony is that Public Cloud is inherently more secure and easier to manage than traditional on-premise deployments. Cloud providers invest significantly more in security technologies and continuously learn from customer requirements to evolve security best practices and design architectures. For example, AWS Organizations enables to centrally manage and grow your AWS environment across regions to allocate resources, manage configuration and meet compliance and audit requirements.
Security patching and updates are easier in the Cloud in an automated environment which offer high visibility and auto-remediation. In contrast it is a nightmare to manually patch IT systems in heterogenous traditional environments.
The built-in automation of Cloud infrastructure facilitates frequent architectural changes to meet with the evolving security needs of customers.
Enhancing Cloud Security Posture
Cloud security can be achieved by mapping the organization’s goals and compliance needs and integrating those with architectural design and policies. Our experience finds the following steps essential to achieve comprehensive Cloud security.
Detailed security assessment of existing deployment to identify misconfigurations, architectural risks and blind spots.
Define a security roadmap for a robust foundation for Cloud security with sound architecture and design principles, tools and forensics.
Implement Security By Design principles, configure AWS security services and third-party tools for comprehensive view of the environment.
Security automation for continuous compliance, auto-remediation and build incident response processes.
Enable 24×7 monitoring with advanced analytics, threat remediation and ongoing threat management.
Umbrella Steps Up Security Services
A number of high-profile leaks in India has catapulted Cloud security to the front and center of business discussions. Umbrella has stepped up Cloud security services with many customers promptly signing up, some having experienced security breaches and many wanting to enhance the security posture.
Umbrella audits and reviews Cloud environments and implements security recommendations using AWS services such as AWS Organization and Landing Zone, AWS Guard Duty, Inspector, Detective, Security Hub and deep security solutions. Using a combination of approaches that includes continuous compliance, hardened security practices and access management we help customers enhance security scores for CIS and AWS best practices.
A recognized AWS Well Architected Review partner and with a strategic partnership with CheckPoint, Umbrella brings in the relevant expertise and experience to help organizations achieve security and compliance.
This article is originally published on Umbrella Infocare Blog
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