Cloud security continues to be one of the most important issues for companies that adopt this technology. The threats to data and applications in the cloud continue to evolve as technology changes and hackers continually become more sophisticated.
New Security Priorities
Every year brings new, urgent priorities for security. Experts see several trends and priorities in 2019.
For one thing, attacks will be smarter than ever. It’s no surprise that the same artificial intelligence methods helping companies be smarter about business are being leveraged by hackers to create smarter malicious software. Phishing will become more dangerous as hackers leverage chatbots. Companies will need to counter by leveraging AI technology like machine learning to protect customer privacy.
In general, the number of attacks is expected to increase, although there likely to be fewer cryptojacking attempts. New exploits may target containers as businesses increasingly use that technology to speed up application deployment.
Mandatory Steps for Cloud Security
While the cloud is extremely flexible and the specific tools you choose will depend on your exact cloud implementation, all approaches to cloud security need to address these concerns:
- Monitoring. Being able to monitor what’s happening in your cloud should be your top priority. It doesn’t matter what tools you put in place; they all have limitations and if you can’t detect attacks or unauthorized access, you’ll never know what risks you’re facing.
- Network. Protecting data in transit between the cloud and your users is vital. Extending firewalls to the cloud, limiting IP addresses, and using virtual private networks to provide a secure connection are basic steps to prevent snooping.
- Identity management. Make identity management easier by using single-sign on and federated systems that let you manage access to internal systems and cloud systems the same way. Use role-based access controls to ensure users are granted appropriate permissions. Cloud access security brokers (CASBs) can further limit user access to cloud systems.
- Encrypt data everywhere. Using secure network connections will encrypt data in transit; make sure data is stored in an encrypted format as well. Retain control of your encryption keys.
- Increase application security. While application security has traditionally been an afterthought in the development process, cloud usage means taking application security seriously. If you’ve increased the pace of deployments in the cloud via DevOps, move to DevSecOps to ensure that security is verified as part of every release.
A number of large data breaches in 2018, along with the GDPR data protection mandate, have made the general public highly aware of the need for data protection. To make sure companies can meet their increased expectations, businesses will need to increase their focus on security.
Rather than manually searching for and implementing fixes, companies need to use reporting tools that scan their entire infrastructure and identify vulnerabilities, plus automation tools that ensure security policies and fixes are applied across all instances.
dcVAST helps businesses understand their cloud vulnerabilities and implement measures to counter them. Through using tools such as CloudHealth and Palo Alto Security Lifecycle Review, we identify the risks you face across your clouds and apply the necessary fixes. We also implement and support Bitglass CASB. Managed services for all the leading cloud providers ensure systems are configured properly and monitored to detect any threats. Contact us to learn more about how dcVAST can help you secure and protect your cloud.
