How do you audit your cloud resources?

Auditing cloud resources is pivotal for a secure and well-managed cloud environment. Here are strategies for effective auditing: - Clearly outline the goals of your cloud resource audit, encompassing security configurations, industry standards compliance, and vulnerability identification. - Routinely review and adjust user permissions, adhering to the principle of least privilege. - Eliminate unnecessary access rights through regular user role audits. - Configure alerts for cloud configuration changes to stay informed about any modifications. - Promptly address and validate changes through automated notifications. - Establish comprehensive logging and monitoring for cloud resources.

Audit scope and objectives should be the same whether the resource you are auditing is cloud or not. To define the scope and objectives, it is important to have an understanding of the business, it’s objectives, and the value that an audit will bring to the business. Audit scope should primarily be focussed on the assets that are most important to the business - critical assets. Audit objectives should be aligned to the overall cyber strategy. Ask yourself this: What will I achieve by doing this audit. The audit has to have value, and the output of the audit must allow you to make changes that will impact the business in a positive way. This could be resources to improve, or verification that completed controls activity is effective.

It is critical to understand what the posture of the cloud provider's security function is. Do they have a designated team to monitor and identify different threat domains and vectors? Are they certified and do the team members have education as security professionals? Is there a security policy and privacy policy in place, among others? Are there internal controls and procedures for incident response? There are many such questions to consider. Merely passing the risk to the cloud provider does not absolve oneself from responsibility.

A granular approach is taken right from the inception of cloud resource audits. Security policies and baselines in configurations are defined, leading to the discovery of any deviations. Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) will be used to minimize unauthorized entry. Terraform, or CloudFormation, helps with automated configuration management, which is vital for ensuring that environments are consistent. These automated processes should be accompanied by the auditing of log reviews and manual audit reviews on a routine basis. With more advanced settings, machine learning comes into place in identifying the anomalies. Finally, relevant standards are to be covered: GDPR or PCI-DSS.

None of this is truly possible in an effecitive way without having ultimate awareness and knowlege over all your assets, thus its critical as a foundational piece to be able to programtically integrate all the Multi-Cloud rich asset meta data into your internal CMDB and more. How many Enterprise companies are chasing their API assets now, for example, as a security cum data problem.

An audit of a cloud environment works similarly to any IT audit. Both examine a variety of operational, administrative, security, and performance controls. Cloud audit controls are also similar to IT audit controls, but focus on the nuances of cloud environments. Typically, cloud customers use on-demand resources such as Software as a Service (SaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS). An audit ensures that these services meet requirements, particularly those related to security policies and risk management. It proves that the cloud provider is using best practices, adhering to appropriate standards, and meeting certain benchmarks in delivering its services.