The trend of multicloud has spiralled up in recent years. According to Gartner, the adoption of next-generation technologies are cloud-enhanced, meaning they almost always build on a cloud platform for delivering digital business capabilities. With next-generation solutions come more complicated security challenges. However, cloud adoption does not feature security-centric approaches.
Multicloud environments need different public cloud services, which makes it necessary for organizations to be advanced in their security measures. Growing complexities of multicloud environments are exponentially adding to organizations’ attack surface, thereby increasing the level of risk. Organizations can mitigate most of these challenges with a thorough assessment of security needs and coming up with a robust security strategy.
What Must Organizations Do for Securing Their Multicloud Environment?
A multicloud environment offers numerous benefits, including cost savings and efficiency. However, it comes with several security barriers. It is important that organizations understand the risks to benefit the most from their multicloud strategy. Following are some approaches that organizations can follow for securing their multicloud environment.
Vendor Dependency
Cloud service providers possess several security measures for protecting the infrastructure of organizations. However, organizations believe these security measures cover their applications and data. Security is a shared responsibility, wherein the responsibility of organizations is even more with PaaS or IaaS. It is imperative that organizations learn what areas of an infrastructure do cloud security providers protect, working with them to identify right security tools to safeguard their applications and data.
Compliance
It is mandatory for organizations to comply with industry standards, data regulations, and federal laws. In case of sensitive data stored in the public cloud, there is a high risk of compromising compliance. Organizations must store their sensitive data in servers that are in close proximity to their internal controls for remaining compliant. Also, the compliance efforts are required to be consistent throughout the multicloud environment of an organization.
Protecting Historical Data
Several cloud security tools tend to focus on real-time utilization of data. However, they do not usually focus on historical data that is stored in archives. As data privacy laws grow more stringent than ever, meeting new compliance rules for historical data is not properly labeled, which makes it more vulnerable to cyberattacks. Organizations must follow best security practices for their historical data, which include improved data classification to realize data-loss prevention with a robust action plan.
Vulnerability Management
There are many security vulnerabilities associated with software and applications. Organizations must resort to frequent testing for identifying and resolving the vulnerabilities. One of the primary ways of doing this is by using a threat intelligence software, wherein regularly scheduled software scans and penetration testing help organizations improve vulnerability management faster. Organizations must see vulnerability management as a feasible solution to prevent malicious feeds from gaining easy accessibility to their multicloud environment.
Looking Forward
Multicloud environments are changing rapidly and there is a growing need for a robust security framework among organizations. It is necessary for organizations to understand that securing multicloud environments is a complex task. Following an approach of security-by-design that encompasses security within the organization’s cloud migration strategy will enable them to leverage benefits of the cloud while mitigating risks.
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