What Is Cloud Security Management all about?
Cloud Security management for cloud computing is a system of safeguards and protections that will shield your data from catastrophic damage or theft. As cloud technology evolves, so do the safety systems best suited to protect your data.
Cloud computing has become the go-to option for companies who need flexible, outsourced computing services and resources to help them get ahead in the modern online marketplace.
Organizations can now efficiently and safely manage their data and operations in the cloud with confidence.
Before moving to the cloud, responsible organizations must get to know the risks and threats associated with cloud computing. As powerful and efficient as many cloud services are, they are not immune to downtime from internal failures or external attacks.
Some of the most significant benefits of using robust security management strategies in cloud computing include having control and oversight of the safety of your digital assets.
You will only feel these advantages if the right cloud security protections are in place from the start. This article will discuss the most common and effective cloud security management strategies.
What does good Cloud Security Management look like?
Cloud security management involves multiple strategies that allow a company to utilize cloud applications and networks to their fullest potential while minimizing threats and weak spots.
This section will present these strategies in detail.You might ask, who is responsible for cloud security?
Cloud security management is a shared responsibility. The cloud service provider has a significant role to play in providing secure infrastructure. But accountability does not end there.
The client also has a substantial role in securing its digital assets including taking control of user access, user security training, and use guidance.
To achieve robust safety standards, here are some of the cloud security management approaches you can use:
Cloud security is a shared responsibility.
1. Securing the Data Center!
Is cloud hosting secure? Before selecting your cloud service provider, you need to assess and analyze them for potential weaknesses.
Be sure to check the providers reliability and performance against their SLAs (Service-level agreements). You can also investigate their certifications and standards.
Firewalls are an essential part of cloud architecture. They act as a safety wall around your network installation and your users.
Your cloud service provider should be able to demonstrate that their firewall and other technologies are at the leading edge of industry performance and security.
2. Manage Access Control!
Make sure that you manage who gets access to what. Employees can be internal threats to data security. Staff can either knowingly try to steal company data, become a security threat by using personal devices to attempt to access company information. Personal devices often pose a security risk as they are not secured. Make sure that you protect your data by setting access lists and permissions for all your assets. The best cloud management tools excel when it comes to creating roles and permissions.
3. Prevent Threats!
By using the right security settings, you can have full control over your data. These settings could include:
- the intelligent use of data masking
- virtual private networks (VPNs)
- encryption
These are just some ways to use security settings to prevent threats from becoming something more serious.
It’s possible to lose sight of how your security settings are configured to protect you. This is why it’s a good idea to use a reliable Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) system. A is a systemized process of continuous improvement that:
- cleans your cloud environment and
- alerts you to any risks.
It acts as a powerful warning system that will tell you if an external threat has bypassed any of your threat prevention measures.
4. Detect Threats!
Threat intelligence refers to the process of locating and managing potential threats that can cause harm to your network. Cloud computing has all the tools to give you superior threat detection at all your endpoints such as company laptops and phones.
You can even rank your assets in order of strategic importance. For example, a laptop might have access to more systems and might need stronger security than a mobile phone which might only be used for emails.
With robust threat detection measures, it becomes harder for malicious actors to access your cloud server.
5. Mitigate Threats!
When encrypting data, you must take special precautions to prevent data loss and keep high data integrity levels. Make sure that your systems have robust and intelligent threat mitigation mechanisms that can decide what to do with a suspicious file.
This could include:
- Blocking access
- Quarantining the file
- Purging the file
- Restoring the file
A good threat mitigation system should be able to do this without compromising genuine network traffic that is essential to your operations.
6. Redundancy!
If your data is lost or stolen, you will need a disaster recovery plan. Your cloud management system can manage data redundancy within the cloud. It’s much better having a plan to recover data than to negotiate with a party that stole your data. Your operations will not suffer too much because you can quickly recover.
7. Legal Compliance!
Many large enterprises need to comply with data storage regulations. There are so many rules and regulations in terms of cloud computing implementation and security.
Once you find out your industry and location-specific legal requirements, you will find that managed cloud security has a solution for you. An example of this could involve retaining consumer information for a while or deleting it within a set period.
8. Cloud security reporting!
Companies sometimes overlook cloud security reporting because they assume that security is the cloud service provider’s domain. You need to closely monitor the diagnostics from cloud software and report any suspicious events to your security teams.
Build up a bank of information so that you fully understand what your security exposure is. If one area of your network reports repeated irregularities, it’s worth looking into it.
What are the benefits of Cloud Security Management?
There are so many clear reasons why you must have a robust cloud security management system in place. Here are just a few benefits:
1. You can audit your operations and business processes!
One of the main benefits of cloud security management is the ability to control and audit your business operations remotely. This type of monitoring is focused on IT security. You are looking for signals of danger to your IT systems, so for example, you could be interested in repeated attempts to access a privileged area.
Where before, you would have to be on-site to make sure things are on track and secure. With cloud infrastructure, you always have access to a remote dashboard to control your environment and keep an audit trail.
2. Managing roles and identities become easy!
As companies grow, the number of users and endpoints grows too. In the age of remote work, user-owned endpoints are becoming increasingly common as BYOD (bring your own device) practices increase.
However, personal devices are known as some of the weakest parts of any network because inattentive staff can easily open malicious content. By using the cloud, you can control not only which individuals and which devices have access to your data and applications.
You can turn access on and off remotely and change permissions and roles with little trouble. This flexibility is vital for a dynamic organization to be competitive.
3. Protect data!
In the modern world, it’s all about data. It is probably your single most significant resource. Data is at the center of all IT security concerns. Cloud security management brings its unique safeguards like access control, threat detection, and threat management.
Data runs everything.
4. Enforce governance, compliance, and policies!
With managed cloud security, you can enforce compliance and governance of both internal and external policies. Internally, this might be implementing use policies and corresponding consequences for staff who are flouting company rules.
Externally, you can make sure that your organization follows the laws and regulations of the location in which it operates. For example, there are different laws around protecting, handling, and disposing of consumer information in different regions.
5. Remotely evaluate the security and physical infrastructure!
Computing clouds might be virtual, but the physical infrastructure like servers that host them must also be kept safe. Cloud computing servers are kept on server farms around the world. Keeping these physical buildings safe and secure is just as important to cloud security and lies in the hands of the cloud provider.
While it’s impossible for you to influence the safety of these remote server farms, choosing a cloud provider with a stellar record of security can put your mind at ease. You won’t go wrong with the biggest cloud providers such as:
- Amazon Web Services (AWS)
- Google Cloud Services
- Microsoft Azure
With thought through cloud security management, your organization can operate with the comfort that high-security levels are in place.
Put Cloud Security Management at the center of your security strategy!
Cloud computing has evolved into a powerful range of outsourced IT services that have a solution for any type of organization. Cloud security management is an essential part of making the most of cloud computing.
Some clear benefits of using the right security management strategies include knowing how safe your digital assets are at any time and having the ability to control it.
This flexibility and control will ensure the stability of your company. But you will only feel these benefits if you invest in the most suitable security management policy for your company from day one.
