Three Easy Ways Cloud Users Can Gain Security Serenity

The concerns people have with cloud PaaS, SaaS, and IaaS cloud computing platforms have to do with the fear of being hacked by an outside source, especially organizations utilizing public cloud.

If your only reservation about cloud computing is a fear of hackers in the public cloud, it may be misplaced. While outside hackers are something you need to consider with cloud, it’s the way that you control your stored data that will really make or break your cloud security.

With an on-premise infrastructure, it can be a full-time job maintaining security compliance, updates, and patches. Your business may not have the time or human resources to cover all your bases, and every patch and update missed is a new security risk. With PaaS, or IaaS (infrastructure as a service) running third-party security solutions, managing your risks can become a whole lot easier. With that in mind, here are three steps you can take to fortify cloud security.

Logging and reporting capabilities 

Proper cloud security requires extensive logging. A secure cloud solution has the capability to provided detailed logging of management actions performed through the platform control interface or through APIs. Users should be able to access log data in the user interface as a reporting function, and should have the ability to view logging data in real time. If you are using a cloud solutions without logging and reporting capabilities, I strongly suggest integrating a third party solution.

Identity and Access Management capabilities 

Identity and Access Management (IAM) is a critical aspect of cloud security. A secure cloud should have firewall rules based on user identity that allow specific users to access specific sets of compute resources.

A solid cloud IAM solutions—native or third party— should include granular role-based access controls and single sign-on capabilities.

To learn more about IAM solutions, check out Solutions Review’s Identity and Access Management page for news, best practices, and buyer’s guides.

Secured API Messaging 

In a public IaaS cloud, APIs are an essential tool of the trade, but like any IT component, APIs are vulnerable to attack and must be secured. APIs in the cloud need to be resistant to playback and man-in-the-middle attacks. To achieve this, a CSP or third party can provide an authentication mechanism that limits issuing of API commands to authenticated endpoints only.

Although the data is no longer in your complete control on your premises, it is still your data. Even though you can’t physically enter your server room and stand next to your data, you are still in control of both the data and the layers of security guarding it.

The largest cloud security threat remains to be the lack of qualified cloud developers, engineers, architects and security experts who understand that it’s up to them how secure data in the cloud is. Simple mistakes and overlooked details are a much bigger threat than any outside force looking for a way in.