What is Enterprise Cloud Security & 4 Methods to Improve
In the comprehensive guide we’ll explore key cloud security measures and how they safeguard your enterprise’s data, infrastructure, and compliance.
Part 1 : What is Enterprise Cloud Security?
As the name suggests, enterprise cloud security is a set of policies, controls, procedures, and technologies that protect your cloud-based systems, your data, and infrastructure of your enterprise business. This includes your private cloud systems for a single organization and your public clouds that are owned and operated by a third-party cloud service provider.
Enterprise cloud security makes sure that your sensitive data is encrypted and protected from unauthorized access, both when in transit and when your data is at rest. These systems enable a disaster recovery plans and backup mechanisms to help maintain all your business operations without any interruption, even in the case of cyber-attack or a system failure. They also help organizations with any regulatory compliance measures when it comes to how your data is supposed to be handled and protected.
Part 2 : Essentials of an Enterprise Cloud Environment
1Cloud Infrastructure:
- Hardware components – Servers, Storage (including physical disk arrays and storage networks), networking (physical network gear like routers, switches, and load balancers).
- Virtualization Software
- Security Components - essential to cloud enterprise security
- Operational Software – Monitoring and Analytic Tools, Disaster Recovery and Backup tools
2Cloud Service Models
- Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): the most basic cloud computing model that provides basic infrastructure like virtual machines, storage, and networks.
- Platform as a Service (PaaS): provides customers with a platform for developing, running, and managing applications.
- Software as a Service (SaaS): method for delivering software applications over the internet, on demand, and typically on a subscription basis.
3Cloud Deployment Models
- Public Cloud: off-site services over the internet
- Private Cloud: single organization operation on- or off-site
- Hybrid Cloud: combine the above with linking technology that allows easy communication between the two.
- Multi-Cloud: multiple cloud computing and storage service on a single network
4Cloud Computing Tools
- DevOps Tools: efficient and automated workflow between software developers and IT operations staff
- Cloud Management Software: manage and automate cloud computing services.
- Cloud Security Software: tools focused on protecting cloud-based systems, data, and infrastructure.
- Cloud Backup Software: data backup and recovery solutions
- Other cloud services: CRM (Customer Relationship Management) manages interactions with current and potential customers. ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) integrate and automate financial and operational business functions. Collaboration tools that enable file sharing, communication, and project management.
5Users
- Employees: the internal users that interact directly with the cloud environment
- Customers: interact indirectly with the cloud environment
- Partners: vendors, suppliers, or third-party service providers that access certain parts of the enterprise’s cloud environment.
Part 3 : Enterprise Cloud Security Threats
Data Breaches
Cloud based enterprise security protect against data breaches or the unauthorized access to cloud services. These exploit vulnerabilities in cloud deployment models or can be the result of insufficient security measures in cloud computing tools.
Data Loss
Loss of data can come from three directions: human error, malicious attacks, or disasters. This is a particularly concerning threat for those using an IaaS model where the customer manages the data directly.
Insecure APIs
While APIs are essential for communication between cloud services, they come with their own security risks. Unauthorized access is a risk in systems that lack strong authentication and authorization controls. If data transmissions are insecure, they can be intercepted. Sloppy or low-quality logging and monitoring prevents the detection of abusive or anomalous API calls.
Shared Technology Vulnerabilities
Cloud services often shared an underlying infrastructure. Flaws in your software like the hypervisor could allow a virtual machine to breach into another. If the tenants in a multi-tenant architecture are inadequately isolated, there can be data leakage.
Malware
If your cloud computing tools are compromised, malware can be spread across the entire cloud environment, impacting multiple users and services.
Denial of Service (DoS) Attacks
By overloading cloud resources, these attacks make service unavailable to legitimate users. They can target any layer of the service model all the way from infrastructure to applications.
Data Injection Attack
Attackers inject malicious data into a cloud service, which is then processed as legitimate data, corrupting the enterprise data or leading to unauthorized actions.
Account Takeover Attacks
Exploiting user credentials, attackers gain access to sensitive areas of the cloud infrastructure and carry out malicious activities.
Insider Threats
Employees or partners with legitimate access to the cloud environment could intentionally or unintentionally compromise your data or cloud services.
Man-in-the-Middle Attacks
The can occur when data is in transit between the user and the cloud service. Attacks intercept your data and potentially alter it by moving through insecure communication channels.
Part 4 : Full Guide to Improve Enterprise Cloud Security (4 Methods)
There’s a specific architecture required for cloud security for enterprise. This architecture outlines how security is implements across different layers of the clous environment. The foundation of this architecture is the cloud infrastructure and network layer. This includes the physical servers, storage, and network resources. Security at this layer involves firewalls, intrusion detection/prevention systems, and network segmentation.
Another layer example would be the Data layer. This protection layer is focused on protecting the data stored in the cloud or in transit to and from the cloud. Encryption, data masking, and tokenization are common.
On the application level, security measures are put in place to protect those applications that run on the cloud, securing them from exploitations and ensuring secure communication. These are related to the Management layer that concerns the tools and processes that are used to actually manage the cloud environment. This layer of security ensures that administrative operations are conducted securely, with proper authentication.
Overarching all of the above is the Policy and Governance layer that includes the policies, procedures, and controls that ensure compliance with regulatory requirements and your internal standards.
1 Methods to Enhance Clous Infrastructure & Network Security for Enterprise
- Use Firewalls: Firewalls act as a barrier between your trusted internal network and those untrusted external networks. They’re used to monitor and control incoming and outgoing traffic based on your predetermined security rules. You can implement hardware-based firewalls, software-based firewalls, or cloud-native firewall services.
- Intrusion Detection and Prevention Systems (IDPS): These tools are designed to detect and prevent the exploitation of vulnerabilities in an application or computer system. They monitor your network and system activities for malicious functions or policy violations. This can be accomplished with either host-based or network-based IDS/IPS solutions, as well as cloud-specific services like Azure security center.
- Network Segmentation: This involves dividing your enterprise network into multiple segments or subnets. Each of these acts as a separate network to help contain security breaches and minimize impact. This can be accomplished with Virtual Private Clouds (VPCs), subnets, network ACLS, and microsegmentation tools.
- Apply Cloud Management Platform: These platforms allow the integration of your public, private, and hybrid cloud environments. This helps provide better visibility and control over your cloud resources.
2 Methods to Improve Clous Data Security for Enterprise
- Cloud Encryption: Encryption is an easy way to protect your sensitive data by converting it into a coded format that can’t be easily read without your systems specific encryption key. Many native cloud service providers use services like AWS Key Management service (KMS), Azure Key Vault and the like.
- Identity and Access Management (IAM): Measures like IAM ensures that only authorized users have access to specific cloud resources. Not only do they control access but also the actions that that have permission to perform. Some popular IAM solutions are AWS IAM, Azure Active Directory, and Google Cloud Identity.
- Backup and Recovery: It’s important to protect your data against loss to deletion, corruption, or disasters. This is done by maintaining copies that can be restored. Cloud-native tools like AWS Backup and Google Cloud Backup are very common. There are also tools like Veeam, Commvault, and Druva that offer advanced backup and recovery options.
- Data Masking: Hide your sensitive data by obscuring it with altered data, such as replacing personal information with fictional but realistic data. Informatica Cloud Data Masking and IBM InfoSphere Optim are great examples of data masking solutions that work with cloud data.
- Security Information and Event Management (SIEM): Get real-time visibility into your information security systems by collecting, analyzing, and reporting on your security logs and events.
3 Methods to Improve Cloud Application Security for Enterprise
- Web Application Firewalls (WAF) Protect your web applications by filtering and monitoring the HTTP traffic between the application and the internet. This protects against your web app vulnerabilities. Examples of tools: AWS WAF, Azure Application Gateway WAF, and Cloudflare WAF.
- Containerization Encapsulate your wen application and its dependencies into a virtual container. This virtual container isolates it from other processes reducing the risk of system-wide vulnerabilities.
- Application Performance Monitoring (APM) & Testing In order to make sure your applications perform optimally and therefore securely, APM measures identify bottlenecks in performance and the underlying security issues. Tools: New Relic, Datadog, and Dynatrace are the most common.
- Update and Patch App Making sure to regularly update and patch application is paramount to security. These patches and updates protect against known vulnerabilities that can be exploited. Patch management tools include ManageEngine Patch Manager Plus and Automax.
- Enhance API Security Protects the APIs that your applications use to communicate with each other. This includes data breaches and unauthorized access.
4 Create and Implement Robust Policies
- Information Security Policy: delineate the approach and security measures your enterprise will take to protect its information assets.
- Data Loss Prevention Policy: Create a detailed policy regarding the prevention of loss, misuse, or unauthorized access to sensitive data.
- Disaster Recovery Plan: Outline how you intend to restore IT operations following a disruptive event, such as a natural disaster or a cyber-attack.
- Password Policy: Create a policy delineating the creation and management of user passwords to maintain access security.
- Incident Response Policy: create your procedures for managing any security breach or attack, including essential roles and their responsibility.
- Data Classification Policy: maps out your data according to sensitivity and the security required to protect it.
- Access Control Policy: lays out who can access specific data and systems.
- Remote Work Policy: maps out the security protocols for those users working from home.
- Vendor Security Policy: outlines the requirements and expectations for your third-party vendors that access your data/systems.
Part 5 : Must-know Cloud Security Standards to help organization
The following are incredibly helpful standards to familiarize yourself with when it come to the cloud security for your enterprise:
ISO/IEC 27017: Guidelines for information security controls for cloud specific threats and risks
ISO/IEC 27018: These standards focus on the code of practice when it comes to the protection of personal data in the cloud.
ISO/IEC 29100: Provides a framework for the issue of privacy protection, specifically addressing information and communication technology (ICT) systems.
Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) STAR Certification: By focusing on the principles of transparency, rigorous auditing, and harmonization of standards, this certification provides security assurance.
NIST 800-53: a catalog of security and privacy controls for all US federal information systems (other than those relating to national security).
FedRAMP: US government-wide program that standardizes the security assessment, authorization, and monitoring for cloud products and services.
SOC 1, SOC 2, and SOC 3: Service Organization Control (SOC) reports help service organizations demonstrate their control over their data and therefore the protection and privacy controls in place.
Part 6 : Importance of cloud based enterprise security
There are several critical reasons for cloud-based enterprise security:
- Data Protection: robust security measures are essential to protect the vast amounts of sensitive data an enterprise will store on the cloud. These include protection against data breaches, unauthorized access, and theft.
- Regulatory Compliance: Many enterprise businesses are controlled by regulations that require a strict adherence to data security and privacy measures. Cloud security provides a way to comply with laws like GDPR
- Business Continuity: If you want to ensure the continuous availability of services you need cloud security measures that will prevent and mitigate cyber-attack that can greatly disrupt your business operations.
- Reputation and Trust: Protect your enterprise’s reputation by maintaining strong cloud security. Repetitive or drastic security incidents can damage your customer trust and result in significant business losses.
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