RISKS, THREATS, AND CHALLENGES IN CLOUD SECURITY

Written by Suchit Kumar M | Dec 7, 2021 9:27:49 AM

Each and every day, businesses encounter security risks and obstacles. Some conflate these terms and their nuances differ. The below knowledge will help you better protect your cloud assets.

So, what distinguishes risk, threat, and challenge?
A risk is a possibility of data loss or a flaw. An attack or adversary is a threat. The challenge is the company's obstacles in implementing cloud security.

Consider this case.
A cloud-based API endpoint exposed to the Internet poses a risk. To access sensitive data using that API is the threat (along with any specific techniques they could try). Your company's difficulty is to protect public APIs while allowing legitimate users or customers to utilize them.

A thorough cloud security plan handles all three components, ensuring no flaws. Each one offers a unique perspective on cloud security. For your organization to expand securely in the cloud, you need a strategy that reduces risk, defends against threats, and overcomes hurdles.

Cloud Security Dangers
Since risk cannot be eliminated; it can only be managed. Knowing frequent hazards will help you prepare for them in your environment.

Attack Surface unguarded
An attack surface is your entire environment. As microservices are adopted, the public workload may explode. This increases the assault surface. Without diligent supervision, your infrastructure may be exposed in ways you are unaware of. No one prefers a late-night phone call asking to support.

An attack surface might also comprise slight information leakage. For example, Extreme Compute's threat hunters discovered an attacker exploiting public WiFi DNS request data to deduce storage names. Extreme Compute halted the attackers before they did any damage, but it shows the pervasiveness of risk. Even some robust storage controls may not disguise their existence. Using the public Internet or cloud automatically exposes you to the world. Your company may require it, but keep an eye on it.

Human Error
According to Gartner, 99 per cent of cloud security breaches would be attributed to a human mistake by 2025. Human error is a constant in business applications. However, public cloud hosting increases the danger.

Because the cloud is so easy to use, users may use APIs you are unaware of, breaching your boundary. Control human error by implementing tight controls. Finally, don't blame others for mistakes. Create systems and guidelines that help people do right. Blaming others doesn't enhance your company's security.

Cloud settings are growing as providers add additional services. Many companies use many providers. Providers' default configurations vary, as do service implementations and nuances. Adversaries will continue to exploit misconfigurations until enterprises become adept at safeguarding cloud services.

Security Risks In The Cloud
Manage cloud risk in three steps.

• Regularly examine risks to discover new ones.
• Prioritize and deploy security controls to reduce risks (Extreme Compute can help).
• Keep track of any risks you take.

3 Cloud Security Risks

In other words, a threat is an attack on your cloud assets. Consider three cases as below.

Zero-day Attacks
As the saying goes, cloud is basically someone else's PC. Zero-day exploits threaten everyone utilizing computers or software, including those in another organization's data centre. Zero-day attacks target unpatched vulnerabilities in popular software and operating systems. They're risky because even if your cloud setting is flawless, an attacker can use zero-day flaws to obtain access.

APTs
Advance persistent threats: This type of hack involves an intruder establishing an undetectable presence in a network to steal sensitive data over time. APTs aren't a one-off. The attacker roams the area, looking for sensitive data to steal and sell to the highest bidder. These attacks can go undiscovered for months because they might leverage a zero-day exploit.

Data Breach
An unintentional data leak occurs when sensitive information leaves your custody. Data is the most valuable to attackers; hence it is the target of most attacks. Cloud misconfiguration and absence of runtime protection can allow theft. The impact of data breaches also varies. On the dark web, thieves sell PII and PHI to anyone looking to steal identities or use them in phishing emails. Internal papers or emails may also be utilized to harm a company's reputation or stock price. Whatever the motive is, data breaches continue to pose a severe threat to cloud-based businesses.

Threats to Cloud Security
It's difficult to defend against all the different types of attacks. For protection against these and other risks, here are three guidelines.
• Build microservices using secure coding standards.
• Check your cloud settings for any flaws.
• With a solid basis, go on the quest for threats. (Extreme Compute can guide)

3 Cloud Security Issues
Issues are deficits between theory and practice. Yes, it would be best if you had a cloud security strategy. But where to begin? How do you change culture? What are the simple, practical steps? IDAM (Identity and Access Management) is vital here. It works for small businesses, but what about large corporations? Skilled company executives must know what to do and how to do it.
Examine three problems every business encounter when adopting the cloud.

A. No Cloud Security Strategy Or Skills
Classical data centre security models don't work on the cloud Administrators, one must learn new cloud computing tactics and skills. Agility appeals to many organizations. However, a lack of expertise and skills inadequately securing cloud environments might expose weaknesses.
A lack of internal knowledge and capabilities to comprehend cloud security concerns can expose enterprises to dangers. Poor planning can lead to misunderstanding the shared responsibility model, which outlines the cloud provider and user's security responsibilities. Misunderstandings can lead to inadvertent security flaws.

B. IDAM
The devil is in the details, as they say. Creating roles and permissions for a company with thousands of employees is difficult. It consists of three parts: role design, privileged access management, and execution. Begin with a robust role design based on cloud users' demands. Create roles outside of any IAM system. Each of these positions describes what your staff do.

Next, a PAM strategy defines which positions require extra security due to their privileges. Control privileged credentials and change them often. Finally, integrate the roles with the cloud provider's IAM service. This stage will be a lot easier if you prepare them.

C. Shadow IT
Shadow IT poses a security risk since it bypasses the conventional IT management process. Employees using cloud services for work create shadow IT. The ease of scaling up and down cloud resources makes expansion challenging to manage. Using their accounts, developers may instantly spawn workloads. Unfortunately, default passwords and misconfigurations may allow access to these assets.

DevOps adoption complicates problems. Cloud and DevOps teams like to move quickly. Obtaining the visibility and management levels required by security teams is tough without affecting DevOps. DevOps need a frictionless way to deploy safe applications that integrates with their CI/CD cycle. Security teams need a single mechanism to get information without holding down DevOps. IT and security must find cloud-friendly solutions at DevOps speed.

How to Solve Cloud Security Issues?
Every problem is unique, so every solution is too. Plan ahead of time before using any cloud services. A good plan considers common cloud difficulties like the ones mentioned above. Then you'll have a strategy for each potential obstacle.

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