Defining the vulnerability of cloud infrastructure from cyber security point of view
Giuliano Liguori
Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder Kenovy | Co-Founder CIO Club Italia
Models for the hybrid & multi-cloud era: Identifying the top cybersecurity challenges arising from cloud transformation. Choosing the right cloud partners to ensure compliance with government and industry regulations. How distributed cloud will affect cyber security in the future.
Identifying the top cybersecurity challenges arising from cloud transformation
For businesses transitioning to cloud, robust security is imperative to protect data, systems, and applications from theft, leakage, corruption, and deletion.
A rise in hybrid work and a shift to cloud platforms has changed how businesses operate — but it is also leaving them vulnerable to cyberattacks. Cloud applications and services are a prime target for hackers because poor cybersecurity management and misconfigured services are leaving them exposed to the internet and vulnerable to simple cyberattacks.
As we all know, cloud governance has raised a number of challenges and opportunities during the past decade, as more and more enterprises have transitioned to cloud-centric work models to enable remote work in response to the covered 19 pandemics. Since the multiplicity of endpoints scattered in multiple locations opens up new points of entry to malicious actors, to protect data systems and applications, robust cybersecurity has become increasingly crucial for cloud infrastructure.
We need to focus on cloud governance and tackling cyber security challenges like theft, leakage, corruption and deletion: people previously connected to their corporate network through their workplace, which allowed them to access files and company servers from within the four walls or perimeter of the office building protected by enterprise-grade firewalls and other security measures. However, with the increased use of cloud applications, this has suddenly changed, and users can access the same applications, documents, and services from anywhere.
While the flexibility scalability reliability and location independence of cloud services are certainly desirable features, at the same time there is the need to reconsider security models that are based on the perimeter of enterprise networks and the need to bring in trusted third parties for better security.
Organizations are called to face multiple challenges such as securing the digital infrastructure and managing the technological risks while safely supporting their corporate goals.
The goal of technological change is understood as a shift from a perimeter-based model to one that is very trendy today, i.e. the so-called zero trust or no-perimeter model, which has a huge effect on the legacy applications and infrastructure that organizations have used for years to protect themselves.
For example, network segmentation, and firewalls, are traditional technologies that have been used to mitigate security risks both within the organization and with regard to external exposure. With the cloud-first paradigm, the most important cloud providers are proposing the new zero trust model where the concept of VPN is absent, as the main mechanism for connecting employees to the systems that manage the activities or environment. This is certainly a challenge for many organizations primarily due to their legacy application set and traditional approaches to security.
Cloud transformation enables organizations to transform their businesses and it is therefore imperative. The only way to mitigate the risks associated with the transformation of legacy systems and be ready to move to a cloud-based operating service is by being open to it. Leveraging open-source solutions can be a key factor in the success of the transformation, for example, a digital priority is undoubtedly the modernization of the container-based software application stack as well as container orchestration frameworks such as Kubernetes. With the modern solutions available, organizations can evaluate on-site in their environment and learn how to make modern application workloads work, gaining the necessary experience and then actually moving to a cloud-based operating model for particular sets of applications and data.
Choosing the right cloud partners to ensure compliance with government and industry regulations
Localization of data is another important factor in cloud migration. Choosing the right partners is crucial for organizations if they want to ensure compliance with government or industry regulations in the country in which they operate. Currently, depending on the geographical area, different laws have been enacted, to manage various aspects of cyber security and data protection globally. Governments around the world should strive to find synergies for an effective response to cyber threats as well as to address the issue of data localization so that it can act as an enabler and not a hurdle for companies to adopt cloud computing models.
For example, many countries are adopting a national cybersecurity strategy that essentially involves three main issues:
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When it comes to capacity building, one of the main axes that need to be worked on is the partnership between the government and the private sector, and this is an area where, of course, non-governmental organizations can also contribute.
When we think of critical infrastructures, we naturally wonder whether cloud service providers have become equally critical. With all data aggregated in the cloud, well-structured service providers become equally important as critical infrastructure providers. Although the cloud should be treated as critical infrastructure, in some cases depending on the type of services they provide, the type of services, the industry, and the type of data stored there, different levels of security can be provided. These can include technologies relating to access control and cryptography in particular. Both the private sector and government should invest heavily in encryption technologies today.
How distributed cloud will affect cyber security in the future
Distributed cloud architectures are a type of structured architecture where multiple clouds are used to meet compliance, performance, or other needs, while centrally managed by the public cloud provider. Thus, with this mechanism, our services can be run in the cloud, on-premise (in our data center), or at the edge of telecommunications providers who leverage the infrastructure and network of the public cloud provider, which acts as an orchestrator of the entire distributed cloud architecture.
The distributed cloud is a new and emerging area of cloud computing that is starting to gain traction in the market. This type of cloud computing is characterized by the distribution of cloud resources across multiple physical locations. This can include data centers, campuses, or even entire countries.
The distributed cloud presents a new set of challenges for cyber security. This is because it is more difficult to secure data when it is spread out across multiple locations. However, the distributed cloud also offers new opportunities for security. For example, companies can use the distributed cloud to create “islands of security” that are more resistant to attacks.
The future of cyber security will be greatly affected by the distributed cloud. Companies will need to adapt their security strategies to account for this new landscape.
The future of cyber security is intimately linked with the future of the cloud. As the cloud becomes more distributed, so too will the security threats that target it. This means that organizations must be prepared to adapt their security strategies to protect against these new threats.
One way to do this is to move to a distributed cloud model, which can help to improve security by making it more difficult for attackers to target all of your organization’s data at once. This type of cloud model can also help to improve availability and resilience in the face of attacks.
Overall, the future of cyber security is closely tied to the future of the cloud. As the cloud becomes more distributed, so too will the threats that target it. Organizations must be prepared to adapt their security strategies to protect against these new threats.
Cybersecurity skills are crucial for securing our digital economy nowadays. As part of a concerted effort to raise awareness about cloud and security topics, companies must be committed to implementing education programs around these topics. A distributed, democratized security program can accomplish this goal.
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2 年#1 question I've gotten about our cloud services: How safe is my data? Definitely on the top of the mind for clients these days. Thank you Giuliano Liguori!