Cloud Security: Best Practices and Strategies to Protect Your Cloud Infrastructure
Cloud computing has become a fundamental component of most organisations’ IT infrastructure. Nevertheless, this paradigm shift has given rise to new hurdles, with the safety of cloud-based operations ranking high among the concerns of businesses.
In a recent survey conducted by cybersecurity experts, an alarming 69% of organisations reported data breaches or exposures directly attributable to multi-cloud security configurations. According to IBM, such breaches cost businesses $4.35 million on average, resulting in severe financial and reputational damage.
Moreover, human-related elements featured prominently in a significant 74% of all cloud security incidents. These elements include social attacks, errors and misuse that expose the vulnerability inherent in cloud infrastructures.
Additionally, 89% of companies most affected by cloud security issues are startups, emphasising the urgency for effective cloud security measures that address their particular challenges.
This blog post aims to provide valuable insight into the best practices and strategies for securing your cloud infrastructure against potential threats. Implementing proactive measures is key to mitigating risks, protecting sensitive data and ensuring operational continuity. Whether you are a small startup or a large enterprise, our comprehensive guide will equip you with everything you need to establish a robust cloud security framework.
Best Practices For Cloud Security
These best practices can help strengthen an organisation’s cloud infrastructure.
Identify Your Shared Responsibilities
Partnering with a cloud service provider means entering into a shared responsibility partnership for security implementation when your systems and data are migrated to the cloud. It’s essential to practice best practices by understanding which security tasks will remain under your control and which will be handled by the provider. This responsibility may scale depending on whether you’ve opted for SaaS, PaaS, IaaS or an on-premises data centre. The leading cloud services providers such as AWS, Azure, Google Cloud Platform, and Alibaba Cloud publish their shared responsibility model for security to ensure transparency and clarity. So it’s important to review yours before moving forward!Establish A Policy For Access Management
Unauthorised access is a major threat to the security of public cloud systems. Cybercriminals are using increasingly sophisticated methods to gain access to sensitive data, and companies need a high-quality identity and access management (IAM) solution to safeguard against these types of attacks. To mitigate these threats, experts recommend that organisations acquire an IAM solution capable of defining and enforcing access policies based on least privilege or zero trust principles. Furthermore, such policies should also hinge on role-based access control (RBAC) permissions. Multi-factor authentication (MFA) can also help significantly in reducing the risk of malicious actors obtaining sensitive information. Even if they manage to steal usernames and passwords, biometric scans or requests for a text code will pose considerably greater challenges. Organisations may also benefit from finding an IAM solution that is deployable across several platforms, allowing for seamless authentication for end users while ensuring consistent policy enforcement by IT security personnel across all IT environments, including hybrid environments consisting of private data centres and cloud systems.Make Sure You Review The Cloud Provider’s Contract And Service Level Agreement
While it may seem unrelated, reviewing your cloud contracts and SLAs should be part of any thorough security best practice. SLAs and contract terms are more than just a means for recourse in the event of an incident — they contain crucial details that can impact your system’s security. Without proper clarification, a provider could claim ownership over all customer data. According to the McAfee 2019 Cloud Adoption and Risk Report, almost two-thirds of cloud providers fail to clarify this important issue. In addition to understanding who owns the data you store in the provider’s infrastructure, knowing what happens if you terminate services is important. Seek details on whether or not your provider must offer transparency into their events and responses around security incidents. Don’t overlook these critical components when evaluating potential cloud partners!Implement Encryption Techniques
When it comes to cybersecurity, data encryption plays a critical role. To enhance your cloud infrastructure security, you must encrypt all types of enterprise data. By doing so, the encrypted data in your cloud infrastructure ensures protection against online cyber-attacks and reduces the possibility of security breaches. You can consider encrypting data during transmission and when it’s at rest.- Encrypted Data in Transit: Use Transport Layer Security (TLS 1.2) with an industry-standard AES-256 Cipher to encrypt all traffic carrying sensitive or confidential information.
- Encrypted Data at Rest: While using cloud service encryption is an option, it gives your cloud service provider access to your encryption keys which may not be desirable. Consider instead deploying stringent encryption solutions before uploading data to the cloud by using centralised encryption key management servers that grant you full control over access.
Provide Cloud Security Training To Employees
As per Gartner research, the biggest security threat to your cloud technologies might be your organisation and its employees. A staggering 80% of cloud breaches through 2020 are expected to result from customer misconfiguration, mismanaged credentials or insider theft rather than vulnerabilities in the cloud provider websites. To avoid such breaches, ensure that regular employee training is conducted to prevent any misuse due to lack of knowledge or negligence. By training internal staff on best security practices related to cloud environments, you can effectively prevent internal security threats.Maintaining Strong Passwords
Implementation of a robust password management policy is paramount and should include the following measures:- Establishment of password complexity criteria with specific configuration settings
- Adoption of enterprise-level password synchronisation to maintain consistency across security systems
- Enabling auditing to track all password changes
- Regular resetting of local administrator passwords every 90 or 180 days
- Implementation of a minimum password length requirement
Conclusion
Cloud security is a critical aspect of operating in the current digital landscape. Safeguarding your cloud infrastructure requires implementing the best practices. By prioritising these measures, you can ensure the safety of your data and mitigate potential risks to your organisation. Protecting your cloud infrastructure is essential for long-term success in today’s business environment, where data breaches can be catastrophic.
