Cloud services have seen massive adoption due to the need for flexible and reliable infrastructure. You need to ensure cloud security and secure information. ISO 27001 is an information security standard that provides a framework for data security, privacy compliance, and risk management. Due to massive cloud adoption, companies migrate their workloads, which causes security issues like data loss, leaks, and compliance.
ISO 27001 helps companies
- Secure data in all forms, which include non-digital, digital, and cloud-based information
- Increase the resilience of systems against cyberattacks
- Provide a framework to consolidate data across the system from a centralized location
- Improve protection against malicious cyberattacks and data theft
- Keep the systems updated against emerging cybersecurity threats
In 2022, ISO 27001 underwent an upgrade with changes to several key aspects, including control categories, number of controls, and more. Companies using cloud services and infrastructure for their information systems must comply with information security standards.
One of the best ways to ensure compliance with ISO 27001 channels and ensure a secure information system is to have robust cloud security posture management (CSPM). By 2025, 45% of organizations will experience breaches into their software supply chains, underlining the need for an enhanced CSPM system. We will discuss the impact of ISO 27001:2022 on your cloud infrastructure security and how to improve CSPM for better compliance.
A Brief on ISO 27001:2022 Concerning Cloud
ISO 27001, developed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), is one of the leading international information security standards. It was created to help organizations secure data cost-efficiently and effectively. ISO 27001: 2022 is based on three main pillars.
- Confidentiality: Organizations need to define who can access data. Also, only authorized persons should be able to access information.
- Integrity: Changes in the data can be made by an authorized person only.
- Availability: Data should be available to the authorized person whenever requested.
Organizations that use cloud services must ensure compliance with the pillars of ISO 27001: 2022. This means you need enhanced governance policies and constant monitoring of cloud-based workloads. Some of the fundamental changes introduced in ISO 27001: 2022 that you need to comply with are:
- Clause 4.2 – Analysis of the interested party requirements must be addressed through ISMS
- Clause 4.4 – Process planning and its requirement definitions are mandatory within ISMS
- Clause 5.3 – Organizations need to have clarity on roles, and communications need to be transparent on responsibilities.
- Clause 6.2 – Additional clauses added, making observation and monitoring of objectives mandatory.
- Clause 6.3 – Makes the change planning in ISMS mandatory.
- Clause 8.1– Addition of new requirements for the businesses to set security processes criteria and implement them across the organization
- Clause 9.3 – Addition of clause to clarify inputs from the interested parties, which need to be in sync with their needs and expectations.
- Clause 10 – Focuses on data conformity and how businesses must ensure information compliance.
One of the most significant changes in ISO 27001 introduced in 2022 was controls in data governance. Total controls have been reduced from 114 to 63 focusing more on security and access control. If you are using cloud infrastructure or have cloud-native applications, compliance with the changes in ISO 27001:2022 will require enhanced data access controls. Further, you will need effective data governance, security policy enforcement, and threat intelligence.
Role of CSPM in maintaining ISO 27001 compliance
CSPM helps ensure better data governance and security through advanced monitoring. It enables companies to build a robust information security management system (ISMS). ISMS is a set of policies and processes that help companies manage the security of their sensitive information. Some critical benefits of robust ISMS are:
- Security for all data forms, whether digital assets, complex information, or company secrets
- Resilience against major cyber threats increases
- Improved cost optimization through risk assessment and analysis approach
- A systematic framework to manage data security and governance
How to use CSPM for enhanced ISMS?
A cloud security posture management solution enables companies to gather and monitor configuration data across cloud services for risk mitigation. Further, it allows businesses to monitor workloads for better security and data protection continuously. You can use CSPM solutions to get insights into data exchanged, accessed, and processed to assess the system for vulnerabilities.
The following functionalities can be implemented with CSPM toward an enhanced ISMS:
Detecting anomalies
CSPM gathers data and maps configurations to the ISMS compliance requirements to ensure your business meets ISO 27001: 2022 requirements. One of the key requirements to comply with ISO 27001 standards is to have secure applications.
One way to ensure your applications are secure is to analyze anomalies in the system. These anomalies can be malicious data access events or unusual traffic to a single network node.
Monitoring and reporting
CSPM tools prioritize risk analysis and offer insight into what you can do to prevent risks. For example, it monitors all the data access across cloud environments and detects anomalies to report events. Based on such information, you can develop data access policies. Most CSPM tools have a centralized dashboard with reports that provide complete insight into data transactions across cloud infrastructure and environments.
Enhanced recommendations
There are many policy suggestions from CSPM tools based on the risk assessments you can apply for better cloud security. For example, CSPM provides insights into critical touchpoints in a cloud-based network that are vulnerable. So, you can secure them by fixing the vulnerabilities at specific touchpoints in the network. Further, CSPM reduces the manual efforts required by security professionals and helps build a cloud security posture for organizations.
Steps to improve cloud security posture management
CSPM is key to compliance and data security, but how does it improve its effectiveness? Here are some steps to make sure your cloud-based systems comply with ISO 27001 standards:
Step 1 – Define the risk assessment framework
You need to define the critical touchpoints in the system where sensitive data is stored, accessed, processed, and analyzed.
Step 2 – Map data configurations and security policies
According to the definition of critical touch points, frame data access policies, define roles, and map key information configurations.
Step 3 – Implement policies for secure data transactions
Apply security policies across systems, environments, and devices to make sure data transactions are secure.
Step 4 – Monitor cloud infrastructure for enhanced CSPM
Monitor all your cloud-based workloads for policy compliance and governance and improve cloud security posture management.
Step 5 – Finetune CSPM for improved compliance
Improve your system observability by enhancing the three key pillars: logs, metrics, and traces. Monitoring and logging cloud infrastructure events can help you gain key insights into security bottlenecks. Further, adjust the CSPM framework to reduce such security bottlenecks and ensure better compliance with standards like ISO 27001.
Conclusion
Cloud security is becoming tricky for many organizations as most companies focus on migrating workloads without effective CSPM. This is why it is important to have a platform that offers insights into threat intelligence and data governance and helps improve cloud security posture. Cloudlytics is a leading cloud security posture management solutions provider.
You can use the compliance manager from Cloudlytics to ensure enhanced CSPM and compliance with standards like ISO 27001. Register for a free trial and experience advanced cloud security experience.
