The security risks that come with managing corporate information assets running on a cloud infrastructure are ever-present. Cloud computing sits online, as opposed to being local or on-premise, and as such leaves IT teams with less control over their infrastructure.
Many new applications are arriving in the cloud computing space each day, more specifically SaaS (software as a service) and IaaS (infrastructure as a service) present greater challenges for companies looking to protect their data.
Although cloud computing is always improving, the security measures that IT professionals are making are quite limited. For examples, it is estimated that by 2025, the proportion of data breaches caused by human error within an organization will rise from 95 percent to 99 percent.
Cloud infrastructure is one of the leading hosts of unsanctioned applications, causing a dangerously high level of shadow IT usage. Whenever your staff use applications in the public cloud, any data they transfer, upload, or share will be kept there forever due to the nature of cloud backups.
Understanding Threat Intelligence in a Cloud Computing Environment
Threat intelligence, when properly implemented, is a highly effective element used to fight against threat actors in cloud computing environments. However, it is important to know exactly what cloud applications are being used within your organization and how threat actors could likely interact with them.
It is estimated that the average company uses 975 cloud-based services, in addition, 35 percent of workers admit they have to work around their company’s security policy to get their job done. Cloud usage is far higher than you would believe, and this could be dangerous to your company if the proper threat intelligence elements are not properly configured to help inform leadership decision making processes.
As human errors increase across critical IT infrastructure, mistakes relating directly to cloud infrastructures have been proven fatal due to the high exposure risks associated with cloud-based assets. As such, cloud governance seamlessly ties in with threat intelligence. As a CIO/CTO, it is your job to use threat intelligence data to detect, prevent and predict, and mitigate risks posed by a cloud computing infrastructure.
With threat intelligence, IT teams are better armed with a heightened level of visibility into the emerging trends that are associated with cloud-based threat actors, who continue to create innovative attack methodologies.
Security Risks in a Cloud Computing Environment
- Access management and staff privileges
It goes without saying that if your staff does not crucially need a specific login, website URL or data storage location, you should not be giving them it. Although cloud applications can provide reports of a certain activity (such as file changes or the movement of data, you will still have the common pitfall of being unable to track down who may have caused internal damage to your data or network.
Cloud computing infrastructure is complex, and the vast majority of SaaS and IaaS platforms will give you the option to turn privileges, accounts, and verification on or off. As a CIO/CTO, you must ensure you know which accounts all of your staff have, all of the login addresses of these accounts, and the privileges that are granted to these accounts.
If any privileges are not required, get rid of them, and reduce the risk of an internal data breach or DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack.
How to mitigate the risk of over-privileged staff:
As a CTO/CIO, your threat intelligence tool can provide you with accurate reports of unrecognized file access, login attempts, and the movement of large droves of data within your organization. Your intelligence can proactively tell you where a threat is coming from, the account they may be accessing, as well as any suggestions you should take to prevent a breach of the same nature.
Take more control over who has access to what, and speak with your cloud provider if you feel it is necessary to reassess how many accounts you need for certain applications. Threat actors find that cloud environments are more data-rich, and they will generally “swim upstream” so they can make their way through basic accounts, all the way up to manager’s accounts – This technique allows them to disguise their activity as administrative.
By cutting out “moderate access” accounts, you can spend more time keeping your management users as secure as ever. Make sure to utilize your threat intelligence tool, and implement security protocols like MFA and password-protected folders, files, and data locations.
- Data loss
With any use of cloud infrastructure comes the added responsibility of keeping data safe, secure, and organized. Companies often fail to keep control of their data policies as they grow, and the number of files and databases they store begin to overwhelm the IT department, often to the point where they cannot safely track where files have been shared and opened outside of their network or firewall.
Threat actors often steal data from cloud environments because companies rely on easy access to this data within their network – this poses a risk to companies operating through cloud infrastructure because threat actors can encrypt their activity within the cloud when they steal data. This kind of crime often leads to a more serious problem for IT teams, rather than data just being stolen, it is also lost, with no logs of file history. Lost data leaves any company liable, as sensitive data such as could have been transferred anywhere in the world without a trace.
How to mitigate data loss in a cloud environment:
Cloud infrastructure is often diverse and prone to data loss in the event of an outside breach, or even a server crash. The best way you can manage this challenge is to keep a secure backup of your data in multiple locations and automate your threat intelligence so that risks are prioritized based on whether files have been moved internally, or more serious than that, become at risk of being breached by threat actors.
An automated threat intelligence approach can help you analyze data easily, giving you the ability to prioritize risk most critical to your cloud computing infrastructure. Many companies that work via the cloud already have a lot of data to sort through, so automating this process will lessen the burden on your IT team, allowing them to effectively recognize, sort, and respond to any security risks that flag up from your threat intelligence tool.
Takeaway
Data losses, malware, and account mismanagement are some of the key problems that lie within a cloud-working environment. However, as a cloud-operating company, threat intelligence can be an incredibly useful tool to mitigate the security risks against your organization.
With automated intelligence and a full view of whether your applications and accounts are necessary, you can take steps to limit the number of entry points available to threat actors. By having security alerts automated by their level of risk, your IT team can respond effectively to imminent threats, blocking them before they can cause damage to your data.
Lastly, a consultation with your cloud provider could prove very useful, so you can get a better idea of the kind of security controls you can utilize without their assistance, as well as any other data protection methods that can be taken to avoid data loss, account breaches, and other cloud-related threats.
