Co-founder and CTO at OpsCompass focused on building the future of Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM).
Organizations have a serious responsibility these days when it comes to keeping their cloud environments safe. This includes keeping track of each asset in the cloud, any misconfigurations that could expose the organization to breaches or cost overruns, and making sure everything’s in compliance.
Yet, many organizations aren’t fully aware of what they must do to keep their cloud secure. They think they can keep track of their cloud security by themselves, but even the most intricate systems don’t always scale well across multiple clouds. Additionally, company-created tools might not be able to capture the entirety of the cloud environment, like centralized visibility across their entire estate of workloads and clouds. More often than not, cloud security becomes a priority only after there’s an issue — which is already too late.
Even if you’re focused on cloud security, is your organization keeping up with industry trends in order to stay on top of the care your cloud needs?
In the past decade, we’ve seen a massive number of organizations making the migration from data centers to the cloud — and many organizations think they can translate data center security to cloud security. However, managing cloud security is very different, as there’s a shared responsibility between the customer and the cloud platform, which necessitates continuous monitoring, full visibility into changes, and a new understanding of identity and access. This is where having a good approach to cloud security posture management (CSPM) will be key for organizations wanting to stay on top of their expanding cloud footprint.
CSPM tools can provide visibility across multi-cloud environments, workloads, and teams, with insights and intelligence that can help organizations respond to risk quicker. But CSPM isn’t just the technology you implement. Teams also need to have a CSPM mindset and recognize that security no longer belongs to one department but to everyone who shares the responsibility of delivering software via the cloud.
In order to stay on top of their cloud security, I’ve put together best practices teams need to pay attention to in order to leverage all the benefits of the cloud this year.
1. Prioritize cloud-native services and applications.
As organizations scale their cloud presence, one of the bigger trends I expect we’ll see is the increase in the adoption of cloud-native services and cloud container services.
Organizations need a way to inventory all their new cloud-native services and applications and gain visibility into their functionality to ensure continuous holistic security. This can be done through CSPM tools or cloud assist management solutions that help give a bird’s-eye view of all assets and applications in real-time to understand the entire cloud footprint and detect drifts.
2. Upskill employees across the organization.
The responsibility of cloud security no longer falls to just one department but must be the priority of multiple teams, including DevOps and senior leadership. Broader awareness of how each team affects cloud security and the need to understand the ever-evolving cloud landscape means a new focus: education and upskilling.
Leadership must keep informed on new trends and innovations to successfully manage cloud security and its many intricacies and impacts. Evaluate any skills gaps in your team, choose certifications for continued education, train them to think like hackers, provide them with tools to understand their attack surface, and help liaise between DevOps and security.
3. Calibrate your approach between cloud and DevOps
Cloud security shouldn’t just focus on monitoring assets post-deployment, and today there’s more of an understanding of “shifting left” into the pipeline to implement encryption and other security measures in development. Make sure applications are secured across the lifecycle, whether in the development pipeline or the runtime environment — and know which approach to use when.
It’s critical to implement tools that allow teams to calibrate which approach to use based on project, team knowledge, and other factors. They should check security in the pipeline and leverage real-time solutions to check compliance once deployed.
4. Expand scope beyond the public cloud.
As organizations see the benefits security tools and insights can bring to other workstreams, we’re quickly seeing tools “shift left” to provide real-time insights to DevOps teams, enabling them to secure their projects before deployment. But these tools can also help secure the configurations in other software and applications, developer tools, SaaS platforms, and applications in the operations environment. Tools like CSPM solutions can expand to become the foundation upon which to build a digitally-enabled enterprise.
5. Ensure multi-cloud coverage.
Organizations may be using multiple cloud environments for a number of reasons: They could have acquired a new cloud environment from an M&A or use multiple clouds because of team preferences. Teams need to monitor and address not just one cloud environment but multiple and ensure that all assets across all cloud environments are secured and in compliance. Seek out tools that provide full visibility with dashboards that monitor and protect all assets in all clouds.
Keeping Your Cloud Safe
Teams can play their part by keeping up with what’s new so that they can be prepared for change and apply new insights to their cloud security approach. Ultimately the best way to secure your cloud is to take a proactive approach to security and invest time, education, and dollars before it’s too late.
