With organizations embracing digital transformation en masse, the adoption of cloud tools and technology has grown exponentially. While this has provided companies with improved operations at a lower cost, it also comes with an increase in security risk. For this reason, cloud security has become a priority for enterprises to ensure they maintain the highest level of security as they shift to the cloud.
What Is Cloud Security?
Cloud security is the combination of technology, policies, and procedures that work together to minimize the risk of data breaches and to maintain the security of the cloud against internal and external threats. Cloud security is the shared responsibility of both the cloud service provider and the organization.
The cloud service provider is typically responsible for maintaining the security of the cloud infrastructure and providing access to configuration and patching for the physical network and hosts. The organization is responsible for managing user and access privileges, preventing unauthorized access to the accounts hosted on the cloud, ensuring all cloud-based data is encrypted, and maintaining regulatory compliance.
Cloud Security Best Practices
With the above in mind, there are several best practices that will help you ensure your cloud security is optimal. These are as follows:
Choose the right service provider
Not only do you need to choose a service provider that is reputable and has all the required security certificates and compliances in place, but you also need to ensure they are a fit with your specific security goals. To accomplish this, it is important to assess your security goals and match those with the specific security measures offered by the service provider.
Understand How Shared Responsibility Works
Despite the fact that the service provider and enterprise each have specific responsibilities when it comes to cloud security, these responsibilities can vary based on the cloud security model you adopt. There are three models:
- IaaS – Infrastructure as a Service
- PaaS – Platform as a Service
- SaaS – Software as a Service
When the service provider is offering IaaS, it leaves more responsibility with the organization. The responsibility for the service provider increases with PaaS and is the greatest with SaaS. You need to decide how much responsibility you want vs. how much you wish to hand off to your service provider.
Implement an Identity and Access Management (IAM) Solution
An IAM solution will ensure that the right people will have access to the right systems and data when they need it. Ideally, it should operate on the principle of least privilege, which allows a person with the correct permissions to have only as much access as is needed for the task at hand and only while they need it. Each person or device with access to the system has a single digital identity that can be verified using multifactor authentication, such as the use of a password combined with biometrics and/or a verification code.
Use a Zero-Trust Security Model.
Since the cloud opens your attack surface, you are to assume that every individual and device that connects to your cloud network is a potential threat. When they are treated as such, they all must go through the IAM protocols to verify their identity and level of authorized access.
Educate and Train Your Employees
Your entire staff should be educated on the potential cybersecurity threats that are out there and trained on how to recognize and avoid falling victim to them. This means training them on how to create a secure password and how to recognize malicious attempts to access your data and systems, such as how to recognize phishing emails and avoid clicking on suspicious links.
Develop a Strong Security Posture
You will need a strong security strategy that allows you to meet your cloud security needs and ensures that you maintain regulatory compliance. This security posture will require security controls and policies that will encompass both on-premises and cloud security needs.
Contact Platinum Technologies today to find out how we can help you plan your digital transformation to get the most out of today’s technology.
