Authored by: Fabio Fratucello, Chief Technology Officer for the Asia-Pacific & Japan region at CrowdStrike
Cloud computing is an increasingly crucial component of a holistic enterprise IT strategy with almost two-thirds (65.9%) of spending on application software being directed toward cloud technologies by 2025, up from 57.7% in 2022. And it is no wonder why – the many benefits of migrating to the cloud include improved cost efficiency, higher flexibility, the ability to scale seamlessly and a more agile approach to software development.
Security has unfortunately been overlooked during this move to the cloud. In fact, CrowdStrike’s 2022 Global Threat Report highlighted how enterprise risk is consolidating around three critical areas: endpoints and cloud workloads, identity, and data.
Cloud computing security threats
Given how business processes are progressively relying on cloud providers to operate and deliver services to their customers, the same cloud providers are also increasingly targeted by threat actors. This is a trend that is only set to continue, considering how the attack surface has become larger due to greater cloud adoption. While some threats still target the traditional organizational endpoint surface, others target cloud providers in an attempt to abuse the provider/trust relationship and ultimately gain access to the organization via lateral movements.
Therefore, tighter security controls should be one of a core area of focus for organizations looking to embark on the cloud journey. Granted, the big migration to the cloud means databases, applications and IT processes will be transferred – all of which are important digital assets. Some of the most common cloud security challenges include limited visibility of the entire cloud or multi-cloud environments, failure to secure workloads, failure to timely identify cloud misconfigurations, unsecured APIs and unauthorized access, as well as the ability to remediate such exposures. These challenges are compounded by the constant struggle to find and attract a knowledgeable security workforce.
That’s plenty for organizations to think about and it only takes one weakness in any of these areas to grant an attacker an ‘in’ to the cloud environment.
Why cloud security is important
Cloud security is the practice of protecting cloud-based data, applications and infrastructure by using a set of policies, controls, procedures and technology. It provides multiple layers of threat protection, from prevention to detection and in the unfortunate event of a breach, the appropriate response capabilities.
90% of business leaders in Asia Pacific are approaching the cloud opportunity more aggressively, further emphasizing the importance of properly configuring cloud deployments with security as a top-of-mind priority.
An enterprise’s security posture must include cloud as a vertical to address, given its increasing relevance and importance. A company’s security team can cross-collaborate with the DevOps and Cloud Engineering teams to integrate their capabilities for the most robust cloud security solution.
A server today is the workload of tomorrow and cloud is the next environment that organizations need to focus on protecting.
Guide to cloud security best practices
The threat landscape is constantly evolving, as with the cloud environment. Leveraging a holistic approach to cloud security is thus the only effective way to safeguard precious digital assets. To stay compliant and secure, it requires the keen understanding of the shared responsibility model, training staff and securing the cloud pre-runtime, at run-time and the control plane (the part of a network that controls how data is forwarded). These are a core set of best practices for cloud security that can guide enterprises toward a secure cloud and address cloud security issues. Cloud security solutions such as Cloud Workload, Protection and Cloud Security Posture Management can already ensure that adequate security capabilities exist within the organization.
Protecting cloud data requires visibility and control across all workloads and containers, enabling organizations to:
● Monitor and record activity,
● Discover workloads and containers,
● Protect pre-runtime and run-time,
● Identify cloud environment misconfiguration in a timely manner, and
● Ensure a continuous approach to cloud threat detection and cloud threat hunting.
Putting security front and center when approaching the cloud journey ensures that organizations will be able to accelerate their cloud migration, meet the dynamic nature of cloud computing and reduce the alert fatigue as well as improve their security team productivity.
