When you migrate to the cloud, cybersecurity is still a crucial thing to consider. While it’s now partly the job of your cloud service provider, you’ll have to be just as strict to keep your business safe.
The main difficulty with cloud application migration (with regards to security) is that most of your old systems will be geared towards data centre-based systems. You’ll still need similar approaches, but you’ll need new software, governance, understanding, and so on.
On this page, we’re running through a few security considerations and challenges when you start the digital transformation process. Include them in your overall digital strategy so you’re prepared and able to mitigate risk when the time comes.
Securing admin access
The cloud control pane on large environments such as Microsoft Azure can be overwhelming. There are so many settings to enable and/or check that you can quickly lose track of what you’ve done and what you still have to do.
The benefits of these more complex public cloud services far outweigh this. Keep track of what you’ve done when setting your environment up. It’s best to follow specific benchmarks so you can tick things off as you go.
If a control pane isn’t configured correctly, it could leave you vulnerable or with data exposed. Two of the most common weaknesses are through administrative access portals or forceful entry through weak access credentials.
Most cloud vendors try to make this simpler by providing a cloud-based tool that evaluates your environment and then tells you what you should be doing in a dashboard, along with simple click to remediate options. In Azure, for example, this is the Microsoft Defender for Cloud pane in the Azure Portal.
For more advice on the best benchmarks to use, feel free to contact us.
Understanding security responsibilities in the cloud
The cloud service provider will do everything possible to keep the environment safe. It’s part of a shared responsibility across providers – keeping things secure benefits everyone.
An easy way to look at it is that security in the cloud – including identity and access management, operating system configuration, encryption, data protection and network security – is your responsibility. The service provider should provide you with the tools to run your environment securely, but you have to enable those tools and configure them based on your own requirements – sometimes the tools will be free and sometimes they will have a cost.
When it comes to the security of the cloud – including databases, networking, compute elements, hypervisors and storage infrastructure – the lines get a little more blurred.
While many organisations believe the security of the cloud environment is the provider’s responsibility, this isn’t always true.
In most instances, the provider will warn you if it thinks you’re doing something insecure – such as making a private database publicly accessible online – but won’t actually prevent you from doing it, the decision will still be yours, as the customer.
The same is true for most cloud-based resources. Virtual machines, for example, can be presented straight to the internet, or not. Resources can be given public IP addresses, or not.
So, the hypervisors and underlying network, storage etc are the providers responsibility, but what you do on top of this infrastructure is your responsibility.
Cloud providers are, however, wholly responsible for physical security of their data centres, including their disaster recovery planning and business continuity, and any legal or HR obligations this entails.
As a cloud customer, you’ll still need to plan your own disaster recovery and continuity processes, along with data backup, protection and recovery.
When you start using a commercial cloud environment, you must adhere to the standards and expectations they set. For example, you might need a unique set of cloud security controls and services designed to meet the necessary regulations. Certain industries, such as finance, healthcare and the public sector, require a certain level of cybersecurity. A well-known example of this is the British Government’s Cyber Essentials.
When signing up to use a cloud provider’s environment, ensure you understand what you need to do at your end.
Securing APIs
These days, automation is a must. With automatic system responses and streamlined ways of doing things, you can significantly reduce costs and free staff up to focus on the main aspects of their jobs.
However, if misapplied, automation and APIs can create holes in your cybersecurity. Hackers may be able to access your system.
When setting up automated processes, ensure you follow best practice techniques. If in any doubt, it’s best to get some assistance from a trained specialist.
Privileged access
When you migrate to the cloud, you need several new inputs. These include DevOps engineers and cloud architects. Each of these individuals needs access to the bare bones of your system in order to do their job.
If these privileged access positions aren’t strictly monitored with secure login connections and authentications, there’s the potential for a weakness in your cybersecurity.
Managing privileged access is about ensuring that ‘least privilege’ is in use and that the use of privilege is ‘time bound’ and associated with change management. Usage should be monitored for abnormal behaviour patterns, and you should regularly review who has privilege, rather than monitoring the specific people.
Ensure all administrators and site engineers follow best practices and take due diligence when accessing your system – even (and especially) if they do it multiple times per day.
AMDH Services Ltd can help you
Cloud migration comes with a mindboggling amount of new terminology, restrictions and cybersecurity implications. However, it also allows your organisation to reach higher goals, streamline efficiency, reduce costs and expand audiences and client interactions.
If you’re worried about the cybersecurity implications of cloud migration, don’t let that stop you. Bring in a specialist ICT consultant to help. They’ll help by ensuring everything you do is cost-effective, efficient and – most importantly – secure from threats.
Here at AMDH Services Ltd, we offer just that. We’ll partner with your organisation to find the best ways to protect your system.
For more information on cloud migration cybersecurity, why not get in touch with us through the form below? We’d be pleased to have a completely commitment-free conversation to learn about you and what you need. If you’d like our assistance, we can go from there.
We look forward to hearing from you.
