Cloud computing offers practical advantages like flexibility, cost efficiency and scalability. However, there are a plethora of cybersecurity risks present in the cloud, making it difficult to protect data and comply with regulations.
Cloud security involves various measures such as controls, procedures, and technologies to safeguard an organization’s critical systems and data against cybersecurity threats arising from cloud environments. The main security challenges in the cloud include a large attack surface, lack of visibility, and complexity of environments. Though cloud providers provide protection against external cyberattacks, the human factor remains a crucial element as employees could unknowingly put our cloud infrastructure and valuable data at risk.
Major Threats for Cloud Infrastructure Security
To ensure the safety of cloud, it’s important to take into account the following cybersecurity risks:
Compromised Accounts: Cyberattackers can access sensitive data by taking over an account belonging to either a regular employee or privileged user, or a third party with access to an organization’s cloud environment. Compromised accounts can be used to access systems, trick users into handing over credentials, or perform malicious actions via hijacked email accounts. Account compromise can occur due to various reasons, such as poor password practices.
Social Engineering Attacks: A cyberattacker can use social engineering techniques such as phishing to deceive employees into providing access to important information. This involves a seemingly trustworthy entity tricking a victim into handing over credentials or other sensitive information, or downloading a malicious application or visiting a compromised website. In which case, their account will be compromised and their computer may become infected with a virus.
Shadow IT: Your employees may not understand what shadow IT is, and as a result, they could install and use unauthorized cloud applications and services. This activity creates cybersecurity risks, including the lack of control over unauthorized software, potential vulnerabilities, and compliance issues. Breached cloud services could give cybercriminals access to your sensitive data, which could be deleted or stolen.
Negligent insiders: Low cybersecurity awareness in an organization can lead to compromised accounts, and vulnerability exploits. Workers and third-party members with access to the cloud infrastructure can accidentally cause security breaches by using weak passwords, use unauthorized cloud applications, or fail to adhere other important security protocols. Additionally, administrators who overlook their responsibilities can increase the risk of cloud misconfiguration, which constitutes 23% of all cloud security incidents, as stated in the 2022 Cloud Security Report, referenced above.
Malicious insiders: Insider threats are a common problem in both cloud and on-premises environments, and they can come from a variety of sources. A malicious insider could be anyone from a hacker carrying out industrial espionage to a current or former employee with a grudge against the company. Such insiders can cause data loss, disrupt systems, and steal intellectual property. Insiders are difficult to detect because their activity often looks like normal everyday behavior, and they typically have access to critical systems and data.
Cloud Security Best Practices
Below are some of the most commonly cited best practices for securing cloud infrastructure:
1. Strong Passwords and MFA
Even though cloud providers protect their customers’ infrastructure, organizations are still responsible for securing their own cloud accounts and sensitive data. To lower the risk of account compromise, it’s important to have strong password management policies in place. This includes using unique and complex passwords for different accounts and carrying out regular password changes. A centralized password management solution can help automate password management, securely store passwords, and provide users with one-time passwords. Additionally, implementing multi-factor authentication (MFA) can ensure a ‘zero trust’ approach in your organization’s cloud infrastructure.
2. Tightly Controlled Access Privileges
Organizations often give employees extensive access to data and systems, which makes them an easy target for cyberattacks. To prevent this, organizations should regularly review and revoke user privileges, following the principle of least privilege (PoLP) and controlling access permissions through clear on-boarding and off-boarding procedures. Organizations should also grant access by request, provide one-time access codes, and limit the period of access.
3. Round-The-Clock Employee Monitoring
To ensure visibility into how your cloud infrastructure is accessed and used, organizations should monitor employee activity using a specialized real-time auditing solution. These solutions can detect early signs of potential breaches or insider threats, such as suspicious file/folder activity or unauthorized access to sensitive data. Monitoring should also extend to third parties with system access. A sophisticated user and entity behavior analytics (UEBA) solution can create a baseline of user behavior and alert cybersecurity teams of any anomalies in real-time.
4. Monitor Privileged Users
In addition to monitoring regular employees, privileged users who have greater access to sensitive information will need to be closely monitored. Checking for default service accounts is also important, as they can give attackers access to the cloud network and resources. Use a real-time auditing solution that can monitor privileged users, managing their access permissions, and export audit data via customizable reports.
5. Conduct Regular Security Awareness Training
Cybersecurity awareness training, with a specific focus on phishing techniques, is crucial for protecting cloud-based environments. Even when using the most sophisticated anti-phishing solutions, one successful phishing attempt can compromise the entire system. Simulation tests should also be conducted to provide a more realistic experience and determine which employees need further training.
6. Satisfy the Relevant Compliance Requirements
Complying with cybersecurity standards, laws, and regulations is essential to safeguard consumer data. Failure to implement proper security controls may result in financial penalties for organizations in the event of a data breach. Although major cloud providers prioritize compliance, organizations must still ensure that their own security measures are fit for purpose. Navigating compliance requirements in ever-changing cloud environments can be challenging. As such, hiring a data protection officer (DPO) may provide expert guidance for navigating cybersecurity regulations.
7. Establish an Incident Response Plan
The timely identification, containment, and eradication of cybersecurity threats is essential to minimize losses caused by data breaches. A delay in responding to threats increases the risk of attackers stealing or deleting more data. A tried and tested Incident Response Plan (IRP) with defined roles and procedures can limit the extent of the damage. User activity alerts and automated incident response capabilities can also help detect and respond quickly to threats.
How Lepide Helps with Cloud Security
The Lepide Data Security Platform can aggregate and correlate event data from various cloud platforms, such as Office 365, Dropbox, Amazon S3, and G Suite. It enables you to track any modifications made to your sensitive information, and receive real-time notifications if suspicious activities are detected. All important changes are presented via an easy-to-use dashboard. Additionally, the platform features a built-in data classification tool that scans your cloud repositories, identifying and classifying sensitive data as it is found, which simplifies access control assignment. You can create reports with one click, summarizing all events associated with your cloud data. These reports can be presented to the relevant authorities to demonstrate your compliance efforts.
If you’d like to see how the Lepide Data Security Platform can help to safeguard data in the cloud, schedule a demo with one of our engineers or start your free trial today.
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