Cloud Security Trends to Watch Out in 2019
Introduction
Despite the rapid adoption of cloud services and movement of critical workloads to cloud, there is still a lack of understanding when it comes to responsibility for cloud security. Many enterprises still believe that the cloud service provider is solely responsible for cloud security, while truth is that their responsibility is limited to “security of the cloud� i.e., to secure the infrastructure that forms the foundation of the cloud services. Role of the Enterprise
“Security in the cloud” is the responsibility of the enterprise that has subscribed to cloud services and involves:
monitoring configurations and suspicious activities, setting security policies, identifying vulnerabilities, preventing access control violations etc.
Reality of Cloud Governance
Gartner has predicted that through 2022 at least 95% of cloud security failures will be the customer’s fault. Two biggest challenges faced by IT and Security teams currently are: lack of control and visibility over data, the absence of a solid cloud governance arising out of compliance requirements under GDPR, PCI DSS, HIPAA etc. To gain complete cloud control, visibility and be compliant with applicable regulations and security standards enterprises should be aware of the cloud security trends to make an informed decision and have to: rethink their cloud security strategy
implement a strong cloud workload protection solution automate cloud security and compliance use predictive analysis to detect vulnerabilities and violations. C3M predicts the following trends for 2019
Increase in Insider Attacks Need for a solid compliance system Automation in Vulnerability Management will gain importance Analytics will be the core of good security practices Increase in Insider Attacks
Dynamic cloud adoption has increased the chances of insider threat like never before. It may be the case of an employee gone rogue or a genuine case of innocent misconfiguration. No matter how technologically advanced an enterprise becomes, the human element can never be ignored. One click is all that it takes to make or break things. Majority of the insider threats go unnoticed and this adds to the woes of a CISOs. With the number of cloud applications on the rise every day 2019 will see a substantial rise in insider attacks. Need for a solid compliance system
Enterprises are under a strict mandate to comply with the industry best security practices and be compliant with the standards and regulations that apply their industry and geography. The ever-evolving regulatory landscape is making it difficult for enterprises to keep pace with their obligations. A lot of focus in 2019 will be on ensuring compliance with regulations and standards starting with how, where and why data is stored in the cloud and being updated. Automation in Vulnerability Management will gain importance
Every instance in cloud will at some point be exposed to vulnerabilities. The need to monitor and detect vulnerabilities is critical to the success of an organization’s cloud security strategy. A strong Vulnerability Management involves:
24*7 monitoring of the cloud resources, identifying vulnerabilities, understanding their criticality remediating the vulnerabilities.
A delay or error can cost the enterprise money, reputation and business. Enterprises should be open to adopting a cloud workload protection platform that offers automated 24*7 monitoring, alerting and immediate remediation of identified vulnerabilities.
Analytics will be the core of good security practices
Data collection, aggregation and analysis will enable enterprises to implement proactive incident detection and response mechanisms and to improve forensic capabilities. Enterprises will be able to analyze user behavior and network traffic to identify suspicious patterns and identify potential attacks. While the implementation of a good security practice will help an enterprise protect itself, add analytics will enable detection of possible threats. Security analytics also aide in compliance with HIPAA, PCI DSS etc., by monitoring data activity and log data collection.