The Hidden Challenges of Cloud Security in Today’s Dynamic Environment

2020 has demonstrated the escalating threats and challenges of cloud-related cybercrimes, and these targeted attacks are only going to get worse from here. Coupled with the COVID-19 crisis, this has given the industry a different perspective to look at cloud security standards that organizations can withstand.

While adopting cloud solutions, many businesses fail to balance the benefits of the cloud against the security threats and challenges they may face. These cloud security risks and challenges need to be adequately addressed before an organization adopts a cloud solution.

With organizations increasingly adopting cloud for better scalability, more efficiency, and faster deployments, the cybersecurity experts have to deal with the security of data, systems, and services and also look for new strategies as traditional security tools are not the right fit for cloud environments.

Cloud Security Challenges

Lack of visibility or control is a big challenge when it comes to cloud security. One of the most significant benefits of using cloud-based technologies is that the customer does not have to manage the resources to keep it working. But, handing away the responsibility for managing the maintenance of the platform, software or computing asset, can result in less visibility and control over that asset.

It impacts the ability of the organization to verify the efficacy of the security controls or enact incident response plans. It also affects the organization’s ability to analyze information about their data, users, and services, which is often required to recognize unusual patterns inherent to a security breach.

Read More: Cloud Data Breach – Most CISOs Indicate Security Misconfiguration as a Critical Challenge

Another big challenge is that sometimes not all cloud service providers have security measures that comply with industry regulations like the HIPAA, GDPR, or the FISMA. Opting for a cloud-based service without verifying if it meets the mandatory regulatory standards, leaves the business open to audits and penalties.

Data breaches caused by cyber-attacks on businesses have been one of the biggest cloud computing security concerns. If a cloud service does not have strong cybersecurity, moving sensitive data could expose the data to theft. The costs of some of these new variants of ransomware have become staggering.

One major potential challenge when it comes to security features is the risk of vendor lock-in. Being restricted to just one security solution that is compatible with the cloud service can lead to poor ROI for security. While opting for cloud-based services, businesses need to check how easy it is to migrate from that service to another to avoid vendor lock-in.

APIs are critical to successful cloud integration and interaction, but insecure APIs are also one of the biggest cloud security threats. Threat actors can exploit an open line of communication and steal valuable data by compromising APIs. To prevent this from happening, developers should design APIs with proper access control and authentication, and maintain visibility in the enterprise security environment.

Read More: Can Cyber Security Provide a Competitive Advantage to Businesses?

Cloud Security Posture

Enterprises choose various cloud providers for specific business reasons. It’s the responsibility of the security teams to provide security solutions and standardize security programs across these platforms.

Before choosing a cloud service, it is vital to run a cloud security risk assessment. This helps identify the risks, their impact on the organization, and how often they are likely to occur.

A cloud security risk assessment document can help an organization analyze cloud solutions in tandem with their security needs. This helps address some of the biggest cloud security risks and challenges that an organization might face.