A Secure Multi-cloud: A Real Possibility or Just a Pipe Dream?

By: Elizabeth Wallace

The adoption of a multi-cloud environment has skyrocketed, offering organizations flexibility, scalability, and cost efficiency to operate competitively in the age of digital transformation. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, however. With all good things comes risk. As organizations spread workloads across multiple cloud providers, they also increase their attack surface and face a greater risk of security flaws and vulnerabilities.

To ensure the security of multi-cloud environments, organizations must become proactive in identifying and mitigating potential threats — easier said than done. Typical advice, even targeted at multi-cloud security doesn’t quite cover all the bases. Let’s take it a little further.

The typical advice for securing a multi-cloud environment

More companies are adopting a multi-cloud strategy attempting to maximize flexibility, and there’s quite a bit of advice out there for handling security in such a complex environment. You probably know this song already. It goes like this:

• Develop a strategy: Define your organization’s security requirements and goals. Consider factors like data sensitivity and risk tolerance. Create a framework.
• Understand shared responsibility: The service provider is responsible for the underlying infrastructure, but it’s the company itself that’s responsible for the data, applications, and user access. Clarify and understand the division of responsibilities.
• Implement strong access controls: Strong authentication ensures that only the right individuals can access cloud resources. This includes strong passwords, multi-factor authentication, and regular review of access privileges.
• Don’t forget encryption: This includes encryption for data at rest and in transit and secure communication protocols for data transmission.
• Monitor and log activities: Robust logging and monitoring mechanisms provide a front-line defense against anomalies. Security information and event management (SIEM) tools help.
• Update regularly: It goes without saying but implementing prompt security patches mitigates potential risks.
• Conduct vulnerability assessments: Scanning cloud infrastructure and performing penetration tests identifies security gaps and helps companies stay ahead of threats.
• Educate and train employees: The human factor in cybersecurity is a critical consideration. Security awareness and training ensures employees understand best practices and their roles and responsibilities in the fight against threats.

And there’s nothing wrong with this list. It’s a good list of things to consider when implementing a multi-cloud security strategy. But it’s too broad and leaves a few gaps.

Can the multi-cloud be secure?

There are a few key threats facing multi-cloud environments.

Can we see our entire cloud infrastructure?

One of the biggest challenges in multi-cloud environments is the lack of visibility. While cloud providers offer access management and control capabilities, companies have to go further to prevent unauthorized access. This includes exploring the passwordless future, conditional access, role-based controls, and granular governance. But keeping up with these methods takes a lot of work.

Are we ready for more effective Distributed Denial of Service attacks?

DDoS aims to deny access to services through sheer overwhelm. While the multi-cloud may seem like a great way to avoid this, thanks to scalability, the reality is that you’ve expanded your attack service and make securing them more complex. Again, combating this reality requires a lot of work tracking down different policies from cloud service providers and building solutions that can encompass the mitigation and recovery process.

Are we utilizing API best practices?

Applications and APIs play a crucial role in scalability and integration, but APIs are also a significant part of the visibility/observability issue. Extending security protections to runtime environments in the cloud is vital for maintaining usability while mitigating API risks.

Are we ready to take insider threats seriously?

Your own teams pose significant risks to multi-cloud environments. Employees need to know common attack vectors and understand security best practices. However, going beyond simple training incentivizes employees to prioritize continuous security training and foster a culture of vigilance. Additionally, companies need to understand how implementing tools like AI can help uncover suspicious and anomalous behavior from employees putting the company at risk on purpose.

Making visibility a priority

Lack of visibility (and therefore control) is a serious challenge for businesses securing multi-cloud environments. When organizations leverage multiple cloud providers, it becomes difficult to track and monitor all the data, applications, user access, and permissions across all clouds. Gaps in security monitoring and detection leave organizations vulnerable to unauthorized access and security breaches.

Comprehensive understanding and awareness of the entire environment help IT teams and tools powered by AI identify potential security flaws, vulnerabilities, and anomalies faster. However, the problems businesses are trying to solve by allocating resources to different locations make this visibility challenging. Add in the proliferation of APIs and web applications, and companies add to their attack surface.

Visibility is a key challenge in the pursuit of comprehensive security solutions. Companies must expand their security checklist to include policies that prevent these gaps. While the initial checklist covers important strategies for securing a multi-cloud environment, there are a few key aspects companies may overlook.

• Cloud provider due diligence: Of course, organizations consider security policies of potential cloud providers, but thorough due di…

Continued on CloudDataInsights.com