Organizations shifting to a multi-cloud environment need more sophisticated cloud security systems. These must protect against new threats and mitigate risk in dynamic cloud environments.
A data breach can damage a company’s reputation, financials, and business operations. This is why companies are taking proactive measures to secure their cloud infrastructure, including automated compliance testing.
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Threats
As cloud technologies continue to evolve, security needs to keep pace. This involves using tools, methods, and best practices to ensure that cloud architectures are closely safeguarded. Some are standard cybersecurity tools like encryption, while others have been developed specifically for the cloud. For instance, a cloud security access broker (CASB) helps protect the cloud from unauthorized intrusion by monitoring traffic and detecting anomalies.
Human error, malware, and weak credentials are significant threats to cloud systems. These attacks can lead to data breaches that expose sensitive information to untrusted 3rd parties. Additionally, hackers can exploit vulnerabilities in on-premises devices that regularly access the cloud to transfer information.
Misconfiguration is also a significant threat. It can occur when users give the wrong permissions to the system or when they use passwords that have been used before. Denial-of-service attacks are also a big problem, as they flood a system with more web traffic than it can handle. This causes it to slow down or stall altogether, making it impossible for employees and customers to access critical applications and information.
Advanced Security Solutions
With the growing number of cyberattacks, companies seek security solutions like Versa Networks to protect their networks and data from unauthorized access. One such solution is security information and event management (SIEM).
Many businesses are adopting SIEM, which offers protection against common threats such as malware, ransomware, and phishing. These systems can detect and block such attacks and report on them to help organizations improve their security strategy.
Other security solutions include CCTV, which can deter theft by identifying patterns and predicting when a crime may occur. This is known as predictive policing and can save lives when used correctly. Another security solution is AI, which can identify potential cyber threats to companies and law enforcement agencies based on previous activity. These systems can also predict how much damage a specific attack will cause and take steps to mitigate that impact. They can also identify and prevent the misuse of open-source libraries, services, and frameworks that put an application at risk. This helps protect against data breaches and other threats while improving productivity.
Multitenancy
The multitenancy model enables customers to utilize shared cloud infrastructure resources (like servers) while keeping their data and application environments separate and secure. This offers vendors a more cost-effective service and streamlines the maintenance work needed to manage hardware and software.
It enables companies to quickly scale up as their operations grow without planning for additional servers or investing in them ahead of time. The exact process can also scale down as functions decrease, minimizing costs and the risk of unused server space becoming a security threat.
It provides greater flexibility for organizations to meet their computing needs, including access controls and reporting capabilities. This model enables businesses to eliminate manual, error-prone processes and standardize sensitive data discovery and classification across multiple computing platforms. It’s also a valuable way to ensure compliance with security policies for multiple users from different departments and geographic locations. This is particularly important when dealing with regulated industries. The exemplary multitenancy architecture also makes monitoring traffic, detecting sensitive data, and applying security policies to protect it easy.
Cloud-Native Applications
Cloud-native applications are software systems designed to capitalize on a cloud computing platform’s elasticity and distributed architecture. They use technologies and methodologies like DevOps, continuous delivery and integration, and containers to achieve incredible speed, agility, and scale of software development.
This approach enables developers to create loosely coupled services that can be independently deployed and updated in a cloud-native environment. Unlike monolithic applications that must be built, tested, and deployed as a single unit, cloud-native applications are designed to change with the business needs of an organization.
Many organizations embrace cloud-native applications, including large enterprises with diverse software and platforms. In a digital landscape where threats are increasing, and the pace of change is accelerating, businesses need flexible, scalable, and resilient applications. Getting there will require a shift in both technology and organizational culture. They must also deploy next-generation infrastructure – such as microservices, a containerized environment, and declarative APIs – to accelerate software delivery velocity and improve software quality.
Government Regulations
Organizations must rethink their security approach as the world increasingly relies on cloud systems. Because they need more visibility and control over the infrastructure they don’t own, traditional tools aren’t practical for managing risk in the cloud. This is especially true with hybrid and multi-cloud environments, where the complexity of securing multiple vendors can be challenging to manage.
Security teams should look to address these challenges with a strategy that addresses the unique concerns of each environment. This will require them to develop methods that reduce the surface area of vulnerability and integrate security into their deployment processes without slowing down DevOps workflows.
The biggest threat to a company’s cloud system is data exfiltration, whether through hacked accounts or malware infections. To mitigate these risks, companies should minimize the attack surface of their most critical data by implementing granular access control and encrypting sensitive information with personalized keys. Additionally, they should ensure that their cloud environments scan for open-source vulnerabilities on a granular basis and integrate this with their CI/CD pipeline.
