CLOUD COMPUTING SECURITY: RISKS AND BEST PRACTICES

Cloud computing is the on-demand delivery of IT resources over the Internet with pay-as-you-go pricing. Instead of buying, owning, and maintaining physical data centers and servers, you can access technology services, such as computing power, storage, and databases, on an as-needed basis from a cloud provider like Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Organizations of every type, size, and industry are using the cloud for a wide variety of use cases, such as data backup, disaster recovery, email, virtual desktops, software development and testing, big data analytics, and customer-facing web applications. For example, healthcare companies are using the cloud to develop more personalized treatments for patients. Financial services companies are using the cloud to power real-time fraud detection and prevention. 

Benefits of cloud computing.

Agility

The cloud gives you easy access to a broad range of technologies so that you can innovate faster and build nearly anything that you can imagine. You can quickly spin up resources as you need them–from infrastructure services, such as compute, storage, and databases, to Internet of Things, machine learning, data lakes and analytics, and much more.

Elasticity

With cloud computing, you don’t have to over-provision resources up front to handle peak levels of business activity in the future. Instead, you provision the number of resources that you actually need. You can scale these resources up or down to instantly grow and shrink capacity as your business needs change

Cost savings

The cloud allows you to trade fixed expenses (such as data centers and physical servers) for variable expenses, and only pay for IT as you consume it. Plus, the variable expenses are much lower than what you would pay to do it yourself because of the economies of scale.

CLOUD COMPUTING SECURITY.

Cloud security, also known as cloud computing security, is a collection of security measures designed to protect cloud-based infrastructure, applications, and data. These measures ensure user and device authentication, data and resource access control, and data privacy protection. 

Cloud security is also a collection of procedures and technology designed to address external and internal threats to business security

Types of Cloud Security

Network and device security: involves using tools to put barriers between the access and visibility of data in contained environments, including techniques such as encryption and VPNs.

Security monitoring/alerting: is the installation of both automated and monitored systems, such as a Security Incident and Event Management (SIEM) platform and a Security Operations Center (SOC), that can check for and immediately bring attention to unusual or compromising activity.

Governance: is the enforcing of policies to prevent, detect and mitigate threats, such as user behavior policies and training. 

Disaster recovery and business continuity planning: are recovery measures taken in the event of technical disaster. These measures include data redundancy tactics like establishing backups and frameworks for testing the validity of backups.

RISKS OF CLOUD COMPUTING SECURITY.

Limited Visibility

Limited visibility is a significant concern when it comes to cloud security. It refers to the lack of transparency and control that organizations have over their data and systems in the cloud. This limited visibility can leave businesses vulnerable to various vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and other cloud security threats impacting their security posture.

Data Loss

Backups are critical as a defensive tactic against data loss, and cloud storage is considered highly resilient due to redundant servers and storage functionality across various geographic locations. While cloud storage offers redundancy and resilience, it is not immune to data loss. One common cause of data loss is ransomware attacks. These malicious attacks can encrypt or delete sensitive data, making it inaccessible to the rightful owner.

Compliance Issues

Organizations need to be diligent to make sure they remain in regulatory compliance with the requirements specific to their industry and geographical location. When using cloud-based services for your data, you must ensure data access and storage needs around Personally Identifiable Information are being met by the service provider in line with security and privacy rules or other areas specific to your business.

Cybercriminals

According to Security Intelligence, using cloud apps helps modern attackers evade older email-and web-based defensive solutions. Denial of Service (DoS) attacks are used by cybercriminals to make servers and therefore services unavailable to legitimate users. In addition, in some cases, DoS attacks are used to distract from other, simultaneous actions or to threaten and overwhelm online firewalls.

Insider Threats

Insider threats pose a significant risk to the security of cloud computing. While we often focus on external hackers and cyber-attacks, it’s important to recognize that individuals within an organization can also compromise data security intentionally or accidentally.

CLOUD SECURITY BEST PRACTICES.

Understand Your Shared Responsibility Model

Unlike private data centers, where the enterprise is completely responsible for security, the public cloud adds complexity, and at times a little confusion. The cloud customer is ultimately responsible for cloud security, but the cloud services provider takes on some security responsibilities, a structure known as the shared responsibility model. as long as the customer does their part, like implementing encryption and configuring connections and settings properly, data will generally be secure.

Ask Your Cloud Provider Detailed Security Questions

In addition to clarifying shared responsibilities, organizations should ask their public cloud vendors detailed questions about the security measures and processes they have in place. To understand how a particular cloud provider compares, organizations should ask a wide range of questions, including:

 Where do the provider’s servers reside geographically?

 What is the provider’s protocol for suspected security incidents?

 What is the provider’s disaster recovery plan?

Deploy an Identity and Access Management Solution

Unauthorized access is a major concern with public cloud security. Organizations should consider building comprehensive identity and access management (IAM) systems

Train Your Staff.

To prevent hackers from obtaining access credentials for cloud accounts and services, firms must train all employees on how to identify and respond to cybersecurity risks.

Establish and Enforce Cloud Security Policies

All organizations should have written guidelines that specify who can use cloud services, how they can use them, and which data can be stored in the cloud. They also need to lay out the specific security technologies that employees must use to protect data and applications in the cloud.

Secure Your Endpoints

The use of a cloud service increases the requirement for effective endpoint security, as endpoints often connect directly to the cloud. New cloud projects provide a chance to reexamine security techniques and respond to new threats.