The cloud is becoming a staple for businesses, with 60% of enterprise data being stored on the cloud. With this level of cloud usage comes an increase in the vulnerability of that data. This makes cloud security critical in ensuring your overall corporate security. After all, data breaches, which cost 4.35 billion US dollars globally, can result in financial, legal, and reputational damage to your company. For this reason, you need to have a solid understanding of the pillars of cloud security. But first, let’s explore what cloud security is.
What Is Cloud Security?
Cloud computing refers to services being hosted on the internet, which means a company does not have to invest in the staff and infrastructure required to host these services on-premises. While this may save you money, it also comes with increased security risks, such as:
- An increase in the potential security threats to your company
- No control over the security of the cloud host
- Inconsistency in security
- Poor access management
- Automated DevOps
- Inability to meet compliance requirements
While these risks are very real, there are steps you can take to protect your business. And the first step is to understand the pillars of cloud security.
The 6 Pillars of Robust Cloud Security
To ensure the best security for your organization, it is best to build your cloud security around the following six pillars to ensure it is as effective as possible.
1. Access management
Strict management of access to your cloud environment is non-negotiable. You must ensure that only the people who need access to certain data can have that access only when they need it. You can achieve this through Identity Access Management (IAM).
With IAM, administrators can authorize specific users’ access to the cloud and require them to authenticate their identity to gain that access. This authentication can be done with any combination of passwords, biometric authentication, token-based authentication, and symmetric-key authentication.
2. Zero-trust
Adopting a zero-trust policy can be one of the best things you can do for your cloud security. This means segregating data and information that requires security from that which doesn’t and considering that all users accessing the system are not trustworthy until they prove otherwise. It also means applying this level of protection to every asset and data resource you have. This pillar goes hand-in-hand with access management.
3. Data protection
When it comes to data protection, you’re probably thinking of encryption. While encryption at every level of data transfer and storage is at the forefront of your data protection strategy, you can also employ other methods of protection. Examples include the pseudo-normalization of data or the storage of tokens stored on the public cloud but referring to sensitive data stored on-premises.
4. Change management
Change management encompasses a set of protocols that allow you to monitor and ensure compliance whenever a change occurs, whether that is the transfer or changing of sensitive data, the provisioning of a new server, or the onboarding and offboarding of employees.
5. Automating workflows
By codifying secure processes directly into automated workflows during software development, you can avoid human error and ensure administrative consistency when it comes to DevOps in the cloud environment.
6. Full visibility
Ensure your IT administrators have a single dashboard from which they have full visibility into the on-premises and cloud environments. This will ensure they can see what is happening across the company’s assets.
Remember that cloud security is the responsibility of both you and your cloud services provider. Each party must know precisely what their responsibilities are and work together to ensure the most robust cloud security possible.
Contact Platinum Technologies today to find out how we can help you ensure you have the most robust cloud security possible.
