The Top 5 Cloud Security Challenges

As more enterprise companies start to adopt cloud technology in line with their IT strategy, keeping these environments secure is top of their list of requirements. In my role at Alert Logic, I get to meet with customers who are going through a transformation, and I have noticed some recurring themes and issues which come up in almost every conversation I have. For IT decision-makers, there are some common problems they all face when aiming to secure cloud-based workloads. 

1. Skills 

I could probably have written a whole article about skills. Finding and hiring the right people is a challenge which every organisation faces. In any IT field, there appears to be a skills shortage, whether you are looking for Data Scientists, DevOps Engineers, Cloud Architects or Cyber Hunters. When you move to a cloud-based infrastructure model, the security strategy changes. As opposed to just monitoring the edge of your environment, you have to be more proactive. This requires a slightly different set of skills. You can either hire to fill the knowledge gap, re-train your internal security team or work with a partner to overcome this problem. The advantage of working with a partner provides you with access to a large pool of specialist, well-trained and experienced resources. The competition for high-value staff is high, so as well as being hard to find, they are also expensive to hire. 

2. Transformation 

Moving to the cloud is not a trivial exercise for any company. If you have a large number of workloads, the scale of the project can seem daunting. Most migrations are not a direct (or “like for like”) move. Every cloud platform has a slightly different way of setting up networking, routing and deployments. To get the most benefit from using the cloud, you will also want to invest in orchestration and configuration management to automate instance management. To do this effectively, you have to start from scratch and design your security policies from the ground up. It is easy to get it wrong by thinking security is "bolted on" or can be solved by deploying a network device. It is more complicated and fundamental than that. The cloud can be more secure if you build it into your design, but this requires careful planning. 

3. Innovation 

If you decide to deliver cloud security internally, it is a bit more involved than just deploying an edge device and routinely checking logs and alerts. To stay ahead of the latest risk, you need to ensure that you have a threat intelligence function. This is part of the more proactive approach to maintaining a modern security solution. Not only are you responding to issues but you are proactively trying to predict and prevent hacks before they happen. This is one of the hardest transitions for an on-premise security team to make when they start working in the cloud. If the intelligence function does their job well, then there are much fewer breaches. 

4. Data analysis 

Cloud migration typically opens up a network footprint. When applications become more distributed, and you start to use a cloud platform, you need to monitor more instances. As development environments come and go, and platforms scale up and down, keeping track of all the assets is much harder. You cannot do a physical audit like in an on-premise data centre or computer room. This means there is more data to collect, analyse and store. Data is the key to finding patterns in a network which could reveal a potential threat, so it is critical that you have the strategy for coping with it. 

5. Tool selection 

The number of IT startups seems to grow exponentially every day. The security space is no exception. There is a vast array of tools to choose from to help monitor and manage your network in the cloud. Making the right tool selection is important, but due to a large number of options, it is also difficult. There is nothing worse than selecting software to find it does not deliver what you expected or isn't fit for purpose. For many organisations picking a traditional manufacturer often means a significant investment. The cost does not stop with the software purchase because you also need to ensure your staff are trained to use it properly. You can solve this problem by using a managed service and relying on your provider to deliver the most effective solution.

Does any of this sound familiar? Are you struggling with the complexity and challenge of securing your cloud workloads? At Alert Logic, we make it easy for our customers by offering a managed security service which solves all of these problems. If you want to learn how the experts deliver cloud peace of mind, then please do get in touch.