Transitioning to the cloud is a complex journey known for its significant challenges in data security, governance, and other areas.
It is important to remember that cloud security is a different ball game from traditional cybersecurity. It demands a complete cultural transformation towards a risk management approach. Interestingly, recent research has revealed that about three-quarters of the companies surveyed face difficulties securing their infrastructure configuration, access, and APIs. But why not have a comprehensive cloud security checklist in place, developed with contributions from stakeholders across various departments, that is a valuable tool to assess your cloud security readiness and create a strategic plan for secure cloud access?
Cloud security checklist for safe migration: your handy guide
Securing your data in transit:
- Your data is a precious asset and should be secure at all times.
- Just like data-at-rest, data-in-transit should also be encrypted. Remember, a data breach can cost you a whopping $4.35 million on average.
- Get a firm grasp on your data nature and its links to applicable data governance laws before proceeding with its deduplication and encryption.
Implementing strong user and access management:
- Identity and access management (IAM) is crucial in controlling access to your data.
- Fine-tuning IAM protocols can help restrict access to crucial cloud resources and keep malicious users at bay.
- Implement the least privilege (PoLP) principle, proper user separation, and IAM to create a robust security barrier.
Enforcing cloud policies and governance frameworks:
- Remember, you and your cloud service provider share responsibility for your cloud business security and compliance.
- Set up internal policies for responsible and secure cloud resource use.
- Stick to rules set by cloud security frameworks like PCI DSS, HIPAA, GDPR, ISO-27017, ISO-27018, and ISO-27001. And do not forget you are accountable for your partner’s and third-party vendors’ conduct.
Ensuring the operational integrity of your cloud network:
- Your cloud network is an additional entry point for malicious agents, so ensure it is fortified.
- Employ network security tools, firewalls, and intrusion prevention systems to safeguard against threats like brute-force attacks, phishing, DDoS, and malicious websites.
Enhance cloud resilience and implement disaster recovery plans:
- Cloud security extends beyond the digital world. Protect your physical assets from hardware failure, tampering, and damage. This includes training security personnel effectively.
- Even the best plans can go awry, so always have a backup of crucial systems and user data, preferably in a separate location, to bounce back from system failures, natural disasters, and power outages.
Building cloud resilience and planning for disaster recovery:
- Cloud patch management ensures your systems are always in sync with the latest security updates and patches.
- These updates are essential to fix new vulnerabilities and risk areas. Not all endpoints will be connected simultaneously, so it is crucial to document changes and ensure security updates are delivered.
Regularly audit your security protocols:
- The complex cloud migration process often requires both external and internal experts.
- Staff changes are inevitable, making audits crucial to identify potential weaknesses in your risk response plan.
- Audits aim to eliminate hurdles preventing you from identifying and rectifying vulnerabilities in your cloud environment during and after migration.
Protect external interfaces and endpoints:
- It’s crucial to identify and log all external interfaces and endpoints that access your cloud network daily.
- Every endpoint could be a gateway for malicious agents, so they all must be secured appropriately.
Maintain logs and analyze system activity:
- Keeping a well-structured log of your cloud system activity is fundamental for security.
- A centralized logging dashboard will keep you informed, even if you cannot keep up with real-time logs from all connected systems, servers, and endpoints.
- Using a separate logging system, you can refer to past data points and find solutions to recurring issues. Many cybersecurity frameworks and standards (like NIST 800-53, SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, and HITECH) require strict audit logging.
Identify and patch application risks:
- Web application security is essential to protect websites, applications, and APIs from threats like zero-day vulnerabilities, cross-site scripting (XSS), SQL injection, shadow APIs, and cross-site request forgery.
- Misconfigurations can create vulnerabilities in your cloud application, leading to data breaches.
- Check out the OWASP Top Ten list for more on web application security. To strengthen your security framework, follow best practices like using the latest encryption protocols, enforcing authentication and authorization, documenting code changes, and real-time API tracking.
Cloud security is an ongoing process that demands continuous oversight and expert guidance.
While a checklist can help you secure cloud access and create a security baseline for your digital transformation, it is just one part of the overall security assessment required for smooth cloud migration.
Understanding the importance of cloud security assessment
A cloud security assessment offers a full-scale review of how your cloud infrastructure stands against various inside and out threats. Given the current digital trend, where more and more businesses are flocking to the cloud, cybercriminals are also upping their game. They constantly find novel, more efficient ways to expose weak spots in security models. This is why a “wait and see” approach to cloud security is no longer enough.
Regularly assessing your cloud security can pinpoint weak spots and misconfigurations in your cloud setup. This way, you can build the awareness and resilience you need to stay at pace with the speedy world of cloud business. Consistent monitoring of your network, cloud servers, and services will equip you to fix security incidents and foresee future attacks.
Key focus areas for cloud security assessment
Using a blend of automated and hands-on cloud security testing tools, you can concentrate on several essential business domains. This strategy guarantees safe cloud access and provides immediate defense against security threats. It is crucial that your cloud security assessment zeroes in on the following vital areas:
Status of overall security:
Keep an eye on the vast security landscape of your cloud infrastructure
Access control & management:
Ensure you effectively control who can access what within your cloud environment
Network security:
Protect your cloud network from potential threats and intrusions
Incident management:
Have a robust plan to quickly respond to and manage security incidents
Storage security:
Safeguard your stored data against unauthorized access and breaches
Platform services security:
Ensure the security of your platform services, such as database and machine learning services
Workload security:
Maintain the security of your workloads – the programs and applications running on your systems
and Finally
Cloud security is crucial to your journey to the cloud and your digital transformation strategy. It is crucial to fortify your cloud applications and services using the proper security controls and frameworks.
However, remember that migrating to the cloud is a complex process, and adding a layer of cloud security configuration can make it even more challenging. This is particularly true for organizations with limited cloud experience. This checklist serves as a general guide for those who already have some knowledge of cloud management. But if you are starting from scratch, it is best to seek help from a seasoned team of entrepreneurs and engineers with a mission to address digital transformation challenges by introducing disaster recovery/backup, cloud migration solutions, and a FinOps & MLOps open source platform, such as Hystax. Their experts will answer all your questions and make your cloud migration journey safe and cost-efficient.
