DO YOU TRUST YOUR CLOUD?

How To Manage Security In The Cloud

Is your organisation’s data truly secure in the cloud? Though cloud security has improved significantly in recent years with cloud providers following successful security practices, concerns still linger. It is estimated that cloud was responsible for 49 percent of the breaches and compromises last year. This is now catching the attention of C-level executive and making them question whether or not their data safe in the cloud, or if they even want to move to the cloud.

“Moving to the cloud has significant benefits for businesses but can also introduce risks outside traditional cybersecurity practices. Securing virtual machines, cloud-based containers, Kubernetes, and serverless workloads, whether in public clouds, private clouds, or a combination of the two (hybrid clouds), means developing a deeper understanding of the security issues that come with cloud workloads,” says Ezzeldin Hussein, Sales Engineer Director, SentinelOne.

He says multi-cloud security solutions that can provide centralised visibility and control across different cloud environments are crucial for protecting data and ensuring compliance. Additionally, Zero Trust security is also taking prevalence. With the rise of remote work and cloud-based services, the traditional network perimeter has become obsolete. Zero Trust security requires all users and devices to be authenticated and authorised before accessing resources.

Giuseppe Brizio, CISO EMEA, Qualys, says whilst many organisations have cloud security as one of their top IT priorities, there are still basic security practices that are not being followed. Moving resources to the cloud too quickly causes organisations to struggle to keep up with ever-expanding cloud attack surfaces and increasing multi-cloud complexity, which, coupled with shortage of skilled cybersecurity resources makes the situation even worse.

What are the top cloud security trends to watch out for in 2023?

Mike Fraser, VP & Field CTO of DevSecOps, Sophos, says the top cloud security trends to watch out for include DevSecOps, Zero Trust, attack surface management, cloud-native security, secure access service edge (SASE), and AI / ML for cloud detection and response (CDR).

“DevSecOps spans all these trends and can enable a more collaborative approach through automation across teams to support cloud environments and services to ensure security is builtin from deploying infrastructure as code (IaC) for cloud native workloads to responding to active cloud threats. Advancements in AI / ML for CDR will enable organisations to more intelligently do more with existing talent to cut down on the detection noise and enable response through remediation that augments existing human talent,” he says.

When it comes to the cloud, identitybased threats are one of the most common threats, says Subhalakshmi Ganapathy, IT security evangelist, ManageEngine. To combat them, organisations will explore new avenues in cybersecurity, including Zero Trust architecture in the cloud and consolidation of cloud access security brokers (CASBs). This will ensure that organisations have better visibility on data, assets, and risks as well as reduced operational costs and complexity.

In a survey ManageEngine conducted on cloud security, 35% of the participants referred to cloud account compromise as the most common threat. “However, the most challenging part of that is detecting them in your environment due to a lack of visibility and the inability to distinguish between unauthorised and legitimate access. Another attack vector that has been with us since the beginning of the internet is ransomware. We’ve seen the damage it has caused for a lot of organisations not only financially but also reputation-wise. This type of attack is increasingly difficult to detect and contain in the cloud,” says Ganapathy.

Christopher Hills, Chief Security Strategist, BeyondTrust, says cloud mis-configuration or lack of configuration is still the leading attack vector. “That being said, there are many other elements related to cloud breaches such as malicious insider, vulnerabilities, phishing access via social engineering, and let’s not forget the leading cause of breaches in general, stolen and/or compromised credentials.”

Is cloud inherently more secure than on-prem?

The level of inherent security in cloud versus on-prem environments is dependent on a variety of factors. These include the specific cloud provider chosen, the security measures implemented by the provider, and the security practices of the customer within their workloads.

Fraser from Sophos says customers may have their own on-prem cloud solutions with comparable security measures. Regardless of the environment chosen, customers are responsible for securing their own workloads, so the baseline cloud provider’s services may be more secure depending on customer size, what cloud security technologies they have in place, and if they have an internal security team or use an external Managed Security Services Provider (MSSP).

“Whether using the cloud or on-prem, depending on each organisation’s comfort level with the cloud provider or your own internal security posture, the keys to your own cloud workload security are implementing DevSecOps practices, leveraging automation, and using cloud security technologies throughout the entire lifecycle of cloud environments,” he says.

Hussein from SentinelOne says it is not accurate to say that the cloud is inherently more secure than on-premises infrastructure. The security of a cloud environment depends on various factors like security measures, level of access control, strength of authentication mechanisms, and ability to detect and respond to security incidents.

“Aspects of cloud environments that can make them more secure than on-premises infrastructure include expertise, as cloud service providers often have a deep level of expertise in securing their environments. This expertise may include specialised security personnel, advanced security technologies, and best practices for securing cloud infrastructure. Another aspect is scalability. Cloud environments can be scaled up or down quickly and easily, allowing organisations to quickly adapt to changing security needs or respond to security incidents,” he concludes.