While there may be several differences between cloud and traditional security, organizations can achieve the most robust stance against cyber threats in the cloud if they adopt a similar approach to due diligence as they would for their on-premises environment.
The following is a breakdown of the six pillars of cloud security, which you can use to achieve robust security in the cloud.
A good security framework starts by implementing secure Identity Access Management (IAM) protocols. Assure that team members have the minimal amount of access necessary to systems, assets, and APIs that they need to do their job.
As privileges increase, so should the level of authentication required to gain access. Employees should take ownership as well through enforced password policies.
The zero trust security model states that a user should only have the access and permissions that they require to fulfil their role. This is a very different approach from that provided by traditional security solutions, like VPNs, that grant a user full access to the target network. Zero trust network access (ZTNA) also known as software-defined perimeter (SDP) solutions permits granular access to an organization’s applications from users who require that access to perform their duties.
Keep your mission-critical assets and applications in strategically isolated portions of your cloud network. Segregate secure workloads from those that don’t require data security protocols and enforce these micro-segments with strict security policies.
Use change management protocols offered by your cloud security provider to govern change and enforce compliance controls any time a change is requested, a new server is provisioned, or sensitive assets are moved or changed.
Change management applications will provide auditing functionality that can monitor for unusual behaviour and deviation from protocol so that you can investigate or can trigger automatic mitigation to correct the issue.
A web application firewall (WAF) will scrutinize traffic into and out of your web application and servers to monitor and alert the administrator of any unusual behaviour to prevent breaches and strengthen endpoint security.
To provide enhanced data security, your organization should encrypt data at every transport layer. Additionally, there should be security protocols applied to any file sharing, communication applications, and any other area within your environment where data might be held, used, or transmitted.
Many cloud security providers can offer insight into your cloud-native logs by comparing them against internal logs from your other security tools such as asset management, change management, vulnerability scanners as well as external threat intelligence insight.
Secure access service edge combines networking and security functions in the cloud to deliver seamless, secure access to applications, anywhere users work. Core functions include software-defined wide area network, secure web gateway, firewall as a service, cloud access security broker, and zero-trust network access. The SASE model aims to consolidate these functions in a single, integrated cloud service.