2022 OUTLOOK: CLOUD SECURITY CHALLENGES

It's predicted that the cloud migration services market will reach $9.5 billion by the end of 2022. More companies are moving to cloud platforms or contemplating it due to the advantages of scalability, efficiency, and rapid implementation.
Cloud data and system security are top of mind for cyber professionals in this instance. Understanding the challenges is the first step in prioritizing your security spending and making sound choices about cloud security. Top cloud security worries for 2022, according to Extreme Compute:

The Cloud Security Skills Gap Gets Bigger:
A recent poll found that cloud initiatives are being slowed down because of a shortage of qualified staff. DevOps, security, and regulatory compliance are all must-haves for cloud project candidates. Isn't it a cinch to do? That's just the beginning. Because of the scarcity of qualified personnel, small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) cannot afford to go to the cloud. Another problem is that cloud stakeholders have a severe learning curve. Cloud architecture, security, compliance, and business intelligence are all demanded of employees.

Making Use of Outdated Security Measures:
Today's sophisticated threats and shifting business requirements make many fundamental security methods ineffective in protecting the cloud environment. When security alerts were issued in the past, they were based on historical data. New hazards and their context are often overlooked by these solutions. A holistic approach to cloud security is needed this year in order to reduce false positives and better protect against new threats.

Threatened by APIs: 
A recent study found that over 66% of organisations open their application programming interfaces (APIs) to the public. According to Gartner, APIs will also be the primary attack vector by 2022. As a rule, there were just a few APIs available for internal or external systems. Mobile apps, cloud apps, IoT devices, communications, and analytics all make use of them. Defending against malicious attacks on APIs in the cloud is an issue because of the growing dependency on APIs. Cloud risk is increased by APIs that lack proper authentication and permission.

Faulty configurations:
Ensure that your cloud service providers are providing you with complete protection. The configuration of the cloud security model is an exception to this rule. The burden is expected to be shared by both the enterprises and the security providers. An organization's security can be put at risk by a cloud misconfiguration. It could be as easy as a misconfiguration of privacy settings that exposes critical company information. Over 9600 companies' data, including emails, user names, passwords, and financial information, were exposed in 2018 due to incorrect Google group settings.

Architecture & Strategy for Cloud Security.
It is challenging to maintain cybersecurity resilience while moving to the cloud. In a multi-cloud environment, not all security regulations can be implemented uniformly. Due to the lack of support for key cloud platforms and native cloud connectors, many existing vendor solutions do not work with the cloud. Security blind spots make it difficult to build an effective cloud architecture and security strategy.

Cloud visibility:
The shared responsibility cloud architecture necessitates proper data and traffic management by users. Cloud access can be tricky to determine. As a result, sensitive information is exposed due to employees' lack of awareness about proper access. Users, traffic sources, and faulty controls are difficult to monitor in multi-cloud settings due to the lack of visibility of cloud assets.

Conclusions
On average, it takes 36 days to fix a bug. This has prompted cloud service providers to rethink their security goals. Businesses must be aware of the hazards and have a comprehensive security policy in place to deal with them as the cloud becomes more prevalent.