July 31, 2024
With cloud services, modern businesses have been able to scale their operations, meet changing market conditions and customer demands, and improve agility and productivity. As more businesses move their operations to the cloud, strong cloud security has proven more important than ever. Cloud security is now non-negotiable and a top priority for many Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) who are taking proactive measures to protect their organization’s data and assets from potential threats.
Cloud security is a major concern for organizations of all sizes, and there are many challenges that companies must address to ensure their cloud environment remains secure. This publication explores the key cloud security challenges facing modern businesses and provides practical solutions to help mitigate these risks and secure their cloud infrastructure.
1. Defend against data breaches and cyber attacks
Attackers are constantly looking for vulnerabilities in cloud-based systems, and can access sensitive information through various means, such as phishing attacks and ransomware. In fact, IBM’s latest Cost of Data Breach Insights 2022 found that 45% of breaches started with a cloud-based cyberattack.
Cloud-based cyberattacks have become a leading cause of data breaches for a number of reasons. As more businesses move their data and applications to the cloud, cybercriminals have shifted their focus to targeting these platforms. Because cloud providers store massive amounts of data from multiple customers on the same infrastructure, they serve as a jumping-off point for cybercriminals to access multiple lucrative assets in a single source.
Cloud-based cyberattacks are often highly sophisticated, and cybercriminals continue to develop new tactics and techniques to infiltrate cloud environments. They can exploit vulnerabilities in cloud applications, manipulate system settings, and steal login credentials to gain unauthorized access to sensitive data.
Cloud attacks can be difficult to detect, and businesses may not realize they’ve been compromised until significant damage has occurred. Attackers may go undetected for weeks or even months, quietly stealing data before causing serious consequences for victims including downtime, lost productivity, and reputational damage.
How to mitigate risks
To mitigate the risk of cloud-based cyberattacks, businesses can adopt a comprehensive security strategy that focuses on continuous monitoring, threat detection, and a robust incident response plan. Implementing strong access controls, encrypting sensitive data, segmenting their networks, and regularly backing up critical information are all proactive approaches CISOs can take to strengthen cloud security, better protect their data, avoid costly data breaches, and maintain their customers’ trust.
2. Addressing the risks of insider threats
Insider threats pose a significant risk to cloud environments, leaving them vulnerable to attacks. Unlike external threats, insider threats come from individuals with authorized access to the cloud infrastructure—trusted employees, contractors, or even third-party vendors are all considered insider risks when it comes to cloud security.
Whether through malicious intent or causing security breaches due to lack of training or accidents, those with trusted access to sensitive data can put it at risk by leaving their login credentials in plain sight. Insiders with administrative access to cloud systems can make unauthorized changes to configurations, misconfigure security settings, or bypass security controls, creating pathways for attackers to exploit.
A big challenge for CISOs dealing with insider threats is how difficult it is to detect them. Once users gain legitimate access to a cloud environment, they can easily bypass basic security measures.
How to mitigate risks
To address the risk of insider threats, companies need to implement strict data access controls, regularly monitor cloud environments for suspicious activity, and provide regular security training to employees. Regular employee training and education programs can help raise awareness of insider threat risks and help employees understand their shared role in keeping the organization secure.
3. Meet compliance and regulatory requirements
The regulatory landscape is often difficult for CISOs to navigate on their own because it is constantly changing, meaning businesses must stay up to date with the latest laws and regulations to ensure compliance. Because they vary across industries, geographies, and even the type of data stored or processed in the cloud, these requirements can be a complex and time-consuming process that requires significant resources and expertise. The different data protection regulations mean businesses need to ensure that their cloud infrastructure meets all relevant compliance standards.
Furthermore, compliance is not a one-time event but an ongoing process. This requires regular audits, assessments and reporting. Companies must ensure they have the appropriate documentation and evidence to demonstrate compliance. Failure to comply with regulatory requirements can result in significant penalties, fines and legal consequences, including reputational damage.
How to mitigate risks
To address this challenge, businesses should comprehensively assess their compliance and regulatory requirements and work with their cloud service provider (CSP) to ensure their infrastructure meets these standards. Regular compliance audits, risk assessments, and compliance monitoring can also help ensure ongoing compliance with relevant laws and regulations.
4. Mitigating integration and interoperability risks
Interoperability, or the ability of different systems and technologies to work together seamlessly, can have a significant impact on cloud security. Cloud environments often consist of multiple cloud providers, platforms, and applications, each with their own security protocols and configurations. These disparate systems can make it difficult to manage security effectively, creating vulnerabilities and gaps that can leave businesses vulnerable to attack.
Suppose a cloud application has weak or improperly configured security controls. This could open a potential path for attackers to access other connected systems or data. Additionally, if cloud platforms and applications cannot communicate with each other, security teams may not be able to detect and respond to security incidents in real time.
How to mitigate risks
Mitigating cloud security compliance risks starts with business leaders implementing a robust security framework that includes a unified approach to security across different platforms and applications. This may include creating standardized security protocols, implementing encryption and access controls, and conducting regular vulnerability assessments and penetration testing.
When working with cloud providers, CISOs will look for built-in security measures that can be seamlessly integrated with other systems and applications. By adopting a cloud-compliant approach to security, businesses can better protect their data, mitigate risks, and ensure compliance with regulatory requirements.
5. Spotlight on Shadow IT
Shadow IT refers to the use of unauthorized cloud services by employees who require the knowledge or approval of the IT department. This can pose a significant security risk as these services may not meet an organization’s security standards and could expose sensitive data to potential threats.
Shadow IT increases cloud security risks because it creates unmanaged and unmonitored access points to the cloud environment, while also being inherently vulnerable as its applications may be improperly configured, outdated, or lack the security controls necessary to defend against attack.
How to mitigate risks
To address shadow IT risks, companies should implement clear company-wide policies and procedures that govern employees’ use of cloud services and applications. This can include educating employees about the risks of using unauthorized services, providing secure alternatives to authorized services, and monitoring network activity to identify any unauthorized use of cloud services.
In addition to having security policies and employee awareness programs in place, companies should monitor their cloud environments for unauthorized access and take immediate action to address any identified risks or vulnerabilities.
6. Prepare for DDoS attacks
Distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks are another common threat to cloud infrastructure. When an organization is the victim of an active DDoS attack, its cloud service is intentionally flooded with random traffic and requests, sent by attackers to overwhelm the system and cause system crashes for legitimate users. They can cause significant disruption to businesses by overwhelming their network and making their applications and services unavailable.
According to recent research, DDoS attacks have been on the rise since 2020, increasing by 109% in the past year, with more high-volume DDoS attacks emerging in recent months alone.
Cloudflare reported in February a massive attack where attackers sent 50-70 million requests per second making it one of the most recent HTTP DDoS attacks on record — 54% higher than the previously reported attack of 46 million requests per second in June last year.
How to mitigate risks
In the face of increasingly powerful attacks and the easy availability of DDoS-for-hire services on dark forums, businesses should ensure they have implemented robust network security protocols, such as firewalls, intrusion detection and prevention systems, and content filtering. Additionally, businesses should work with their cloud service provider to implement DDoS mitigation strategies, such as traffic filtering and load balancing.
7. Stop crypto hackers in their tracks
Cryptocurrency mining uses cloud computing resources to validate transactions to generate new units of cryptocurrencies such as Monero and Bitcoin. Attackers have exploited this technology in recent years to steal computing resources and, in the case of the cloud, to engage in unauthorized activity in cloud environments.
One of the major risks that crypto mining poses to cloud computing security is its potential impact on performance and availability. Since crypto mining uses large amounts of computing resources, this means slowdowns in cloud-based applications and services, impacting user experience and increasing costs for cloud providers and customers. Security experts have also noted that attackers could use crypto mining to cover up other malicious activities including network intrusions, data theft, malware installation, or launching botnets.
How to mitigate risks
To mitigate the risks of cryptocurrency mining in cloud environments, security teams often focus on implementing monitoring tools, access controls, network segmentation, and the use of intrusion detection and prevention systems. The cloud environment itself can also be hardened against the risks of cryptocurrency mining. Security teams can implement usage controls and rate limits, as well as work with the cloud service provider to proactively monitor the environment for suspicious activity.
conclusion
Modern cloud challenges require modern cloud security solutions. With cloud operations being critical to businesses across industries, the cloud landscape is an attractive target for opportunistic and targeted attackers. As threat actors rely on large, complex cloud networks that require in-depth management and regular maintenance, it is critical for CISOs to choose the right cloud security platform to support their cloud security strategy.
CISOs focused on cloud security understand that their strategy must be adaptable and flexible, encompassing threats from all surfaces including identity, email, endpoint, and network. Defeating cloud-based attacks means gaining deep visibility across all cloud-related vulnerability surfaces and assessing risks at scale.
SentinelOne’s Singularity™ Cloud ensures organizations have the right security to continue operating safely on their cloud infrastructure. Contact us today or schedule a demo to learn how we can help enhance your cloud defenses and integrate autonomous threat hunting, EDR, and security together to fit your business.
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