SECURITY: cloud
The migration toward cloud-computing is inevitable, and security solutions must adapt accordingly.
Cloud security is a collection of tools and technology that operate in concert for the protection of cloud-based systems, data, applications, and infrastructure.
Unlike traditional environments that depend heavily on perimeter security, cloud environments must be widely connected and offer broad access. Lack of traditional perimeter defense can subject systems to easier infiltration or comprise, so organizations must be vigilant with effective cloud protection.
Mutual Responsibility
While some organizations will be reticent or fearful of moving their operations to cloud, others can become overly confident that responsibility for security is simply offloaded to the hosting provider. In truth, effective protection of cloud data and infrastructure is a shared obligation that must be addressed by both parties.
The migration from client / server software to SaaS offerings like Microsoft Office 365 or Salesforce has been underway from some time. We are now seeing more companies move traditional physical infrastructure like Active Directory and dedicated application severs to Azure or AWS as part of an IaaS model. Security implications go beyond just the hosted data and must also include specific cloud applications, virtual network traffic and the server operating systems.
- Visibility and control over all hosted data
- Behavior and threat analysis of cloud applications
- Identification of potential cloud misconfigurations
- Compliance with regulatory guidelines
- Defense against insider threats
- Detection and remediation for cloud-native breaches