Cloud Security: Things to Consider When Transitioning to a Cloud Service
Prospective cloud service customers are responsible for exercising due diligence in choosing the right cloud service provider for their business. It is important to explain to all employees involved in the deployment of this service: the basics of the provider, the architecture, the services and the tools offered to help them accomplish this task. In addition, ensure that everyone understands the vendor’s security model and the implications of its role in deploying this service.
Moving to a cloud environment may involve risks
With respect to the design and deployment of such a service, moving to a cloud environment may involve risks that were not necessarily present in the local installation systems of applications and systems. It is essential to verify the presence of these new risks and to define the security control measures needed to mitigate them. Consideration should also be given to how the implementation of the cloud provider’s control measures will also help to achieve this. The provider must provide tools to verify that the services are well used and secure.
Once these services have been designed and deployed, applications and systems must be safe to use. The cloud infrastructure must be managed in a source control system that includes change and version control policies. Changes to production resources must have been pre-approved before being executed by a system manager.
Access management
Access management is another important consideration for cloud security. Approved authentication systems, such as multi-layered security systems, must also be used to reduce the likelihood of cybercrime threats. By assigning access rights to consumers in the form of roles, it would then be possible to ensure that no one could negatively affect the cloud environment. Consumers of cloud services also need to understand the access policies specific to these services as well as how to configure them. These services include content delivery or storage services that may have their own access policies designed to store cloud data.
Data protection
In addition to access control measures, the protection of sensitive data is another important factor to consider in a cloud system. By exercising due diligence and choosing the right cloud provider, you will also enjoy the benefits of data encryption. Flexible encryption options, such as management or self-management by a cloud service provider that includes hardware security, must be a standard offering.
There is a small nuance between cloud security, data protection and accessibility. The Cloud Service Provider you have chosen must provide you with data loss protection, flexible data backup systems and recovery procedures to meet your business requirements. With respect to protection against the disclosure of deleted or cached data, the deployment of deep cloud services must be analyzed to determine the location of sensitive data that may have been copied or cached, as well as to establish to ensure that these copies are disposed of safely.
Cloud services monitoring
With respect to the monitoring of resources deployed through cloud services, the cloud service provider is usually responsible for overseeing infrastructure and cloud services. However, the consumer is responsible for monitoring their own systems and applications offered by these services. To the extent possible, you should use the monitoring data provided by the cloud service provider as the first line of defense. It is however recommended to reinforce it by exerting an additional control on your cloud resources. It would also be very beneficial to find other third parties offering monitoring services and other tools that would fit well into your cloud platform.
A typical cloud scenario would include on-site monitoring and cloud-based monitoring. This hybrid cloud deployment makes it possible to transfer certain resources to a cloud service provider, but also to keep many of them in the locally installed system. As a result, a combination of the monitoring information provided by a provider and consumer cloud services, as well as by monitoring the activities of locally installed consumer systems, allowed for a complete picture of the company’s cloud security.
Data transfer charges
Cloud service providers usually charge for outgoing and incoming data transfer charges for their services. These fees are generally higher when you need to extract data from cloud services. Depending on the volume of data, it may be cheaper to move business monitoring data from locally installed systems to the cloud than to do the opposite.
The future of cloud security
When it comes to all aspects of cloud computing, everyone is responsible for managing the security of information in the cloud. Cloud service consumers need to learn how to work with the Cloud Service Provider to proactively respond to security incidents that may occur. To ensure effective collaboration, you need to understand what kind of information the vendor can share, how it will be shared and how much support it can provide.
A common theme emerging from the cloud security discussion points is the need expressed by cloud-based consumers to fully understand these services as well as how to properly utilize the security tools provided by the Cloud Service Provider. The reputable tools developed by these vendors would help small and medium-sized businesses mitigate the risk of migrating applications and data to the cloud.
