Cloud migration introduces organizations to unprecedented changes in the way they apply and measure cloud security. One of the general issues observed is that organizations use a single security environment for both the cloud and on-premise infrastructure. This leads to failure of security controls. Another key issue facing security teams of organizations is the use of multiple technologies, which needs them to be skilled in best practices of all technologies.
It is unfortunate and yet a fact that problems occur even after measures are taken to prevent them. As a response, organizations must prepare themselves to be ready to recover as fast as threats compromise their systems. Having backups and systems that recover in real-time by leveraging on-going testing and maintenance helps organizations be on par with the evolving cloud security landscape.
Most Prevalent Cloud Security Threats
- Storage Misconfigurations
- Vulnerable APIs
- Loss of Data
- Data Leaks and Breaches
- Improper Access Management
Storage Misconfigurations
Storage misconfigurations lead to insecure data. Reasons behind this include obsolete security measures governing storage and data storage in huge, complex structures where files often remain unprotected. Cloud vulnerabilities arising from storage misconfigurations are aggravated by proliferation of systems connected to the storage environment. This further makes data management challenging even for experienced professionals.
Vulnerable APIs
APIs, primary tools for interaction with storage systems, have security vulnerabilities such as undue levels of data accessibility to CSPs. Additionally, it has been observed that the majority of users reuse their passcodes across multiple platforms, which becomes prone to attacks.
Loss of Data
Data loss emerged like a plague in cloud systems in the recent past, as remote data storage plunges and renders backups to be expensive and complex. Traditional security measures aren’t compatible with cloud environments and organizations tend to expose one storage service at the least. Without periodic and thorough backups leads to ransomware attacks, where hackers encrypt data stored in the cloud and ask for payments for returning an organization’s own data.
Data Leaks and Breaches
Data leaks and data breaches are a more common cloud security issue compared to on-premise environments. Hackers never miss the chance to intercept the flow of data between the cloud systems and users. They also leverage the instances of expiration of security services before even organizations have renewed the services.
Improper Access Management
Not managing the accessibility of cloud systems properly is a primary reason for compromised data. The increasing volumes of cloud services and service providers with their comprehensive free service schemes of cost optimization have encouraged several organizations, even SMEs, to embrace cloud migration. However, most of the time, this process is carried out without caution in access policies.
How Can Organizations Stave Off These Threats
Organizations must resort to following approaches by reinforcing the fundamentals which include
- Utilizing the least privilege accessibility for all systems.
- Instilling change control practices and policies.
- Ensuring turning on data encryption wherever possible.
- Ensuring turning on logs and capturing data to analyse for security breaches.
- Adopting automation and leveraging technologies for continuous scanning of misconfigured resources and real-time remediation of issues.
- Conducting configuration reviews and security audits to prevent misconfiguration issues in the security environment.
To Sum Up
Gartner estimates that cloud access security brokers will remain a preferable choice among organizations, with a 33% growth rate estimated through 2020.
As organizations grow aware of the benefits involved in migrating their data to the cloud, they are embracing different solutions for empowering cloud security. It is necessary that organizations partner with leading security solutions providers, such as Cloudlytics, for enhancing their security and administration capabilities.
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