Key Trends In Enterprise Cloud Security And Privacy
Cloud adoption has been on an upward trend for decades. But in the most recent years, cloud computing has seen an explosion in growth. Due to the sudden shift in how businesses operate and forcing employees to a work-from-home model, the modern workplace now relies heavily on the cloud model for growth and continuity.
However, the widespread growth and adoption of the cloud also come with various security and privacy matters. In this article, you’ll learn some of the most significant trends in enterprise cloud security and privacy.
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Human Risk Continues To Rise
Human error will always be a part of any business operation. But in terms of cloud security and privacy, it can create problems as big as a company-wide breach. Businesses of all sizes continue to be impacted by the limited staffing resources in cloud cybersecurity or having enough staffing that’s simply not properly trained.
Thus, most businesses have under-patched environments which increase points of exposure or vulnerabilities, ransomware, and other emerging cybersecurity threats. This is also seen in misconfigurations of IT infrastructure and resources that create easy access to unsecured cloud instances or applications. It’s even more apparent when businesses try to move to the cloud without understanding their responsibilities in securing workloads, thereby creating more points of exposure.
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Identity And Access Control Becomes More Robust
In line with the previous trend, identity and access control are in the hot seat today. As businesses try to control risk against human error, several security protocols such as tokenization and encryption of data have become a necessity. However, businesses are now focusing more on stricter methods to control and manage access.
A robust identity and access management strategy should be woven into a business’s cloud data protection strategy. One way businesses have leveled up their game on cloud identity and access is to implement a zero-trust model. This restricts access to data, services, and resources on an as-needed basis.
What’s more, some cloud providers are offering specific identity management features integrated into their environments. Others even have a machine-language-based analysis that helps management understand who has access to what and make the necessary recommendation on where permissions should be limited.
If businesses can adopt a zero-trust approach as they build or move their services to the cloud, they can save money and time in reducing risks.
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Multi-Cloud Approach Fuels Layered Security Strategies
Most businesses are using multiple cloud providers. A multi-cloud strategy can be useful for optimizing your business applications and processes. However, multiple providers come with multiple security requirements. This can result in the use of non-integrated security tools spread across cloud platforms and creating security tool sprawl, or the creation of too many security tools that increases cloud complexity, resulting in costly inefficiencies and unnecessary security risks.
Thus, businesses are now turning to layered security strategies such as using integrated third-party tools and cloud-native services to streamline multi-cloud security. To help businesses consolidate their cybersecurity and reduce complexity, cloud service providers are now offering services and products with built-in security as well as integration capabilities with third-party vendors. This makes it convenient for businesses with a multi-cloud operation to resolve issues caused by multiple and disconnected point products.
By using a layered security strategy, you can simplify your approach. It allows you to use built-in cloud security services and combine them with prebuilt integration APIs to process alerts and operations at scale.
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Pre-Cloud Security
As new cybersecurity rules and regulations emerge along with the growing concern over increasing data breaches, businesses are forced to take better care of the data they take from consumers.
Those using the cloud to store and process these data are now implementing security protocols before it reaches the cloud. Years ago, businesses would only dump data into the cloud and let the cloud security features take over. However, as migration became the norm, security teams started to point out the vulnerabilities of moving data.
Thus, recent years show an increase in pre-cloud security, including masking, encryption, or tokenization before sending to the cloud. Today, there’s an increasing adoption to bring your own key (BYOK) protocols. This latest trend allows data protection everywhere by using rights-based management. Only authorized users or those with the right key can decrypt data at a specific time of use.
Takeaway
Cloud computing continues to mature and branches out to various technologies and domains. It’s a critical player in streamlining the IT landscape and is expected to do so well beyond 2023. That said, it’s important to understand key trends in terms of cloud security and privacy to better prepare your operations and processes to achieve safer cloud adoption and use.
