The rise of digital transformation has stimulated several organizations to move their enterprise-level applications and virtual data assets to distributed environments like the cloud. By migrating these assets, businesses no longer need to rely on legacy mainframe systems and on-premises data centers, reducing operational and maintenance costs. Cloud platforms support flexible scaling of enterprise applications based on varying workload demands. Besides, teams and workforce easily access cloud-hosted applications and data assets from any device/location, guaranteeing higher operational continuity.
Though cloud migration offers various benefits, several businesses often struggle to ensure the security of applications and data in the cloud ecosystem. Cloud platforms work under a shared responsibility model, where the cloud vendor secures the cloud infrastructure, and the customer (businesses) is accountable for application/data security. However, organizations that lack skilled in-house cloud resources might fail to set up encryption, access management, and monitoring mechanisms in their cloud infrastructure. This increases the cyber-attack surface of cloud-hosted applications/data assets and results in major operational inefficiencies.
Addressing Security Complexity with Managed Cloud Services
In general, securing applications/data in the cloud ecosystem is an integral endeavor. However, delegating the responsibility of cloud apps and data asset protection to in-house IT resources is unadvisable for organizations. It requires in-house professionals to devote a lot of time to track and resolve security issues in real-time. This time-intensive responsibility makes it difficult for IT workers to manage other core operations, resulting in burnout and other productivity inefficiencies. To overcome such consequences, partnering with a reputable managed cloud services provider is the right choice.
Collaborating with a managed cloud services provider enables businesses to work with skilled cloud security professionals to protect applications and data in the long term. These experts perform a detailed assessment of the business’s cloud ecosystem and discover potential misconfigurations and compliance vulnerabilities that might expose data assets and applications to threats. This analysis enables them to execute appropriate remediation efforts, such as the implementation of patches, backups, and audit mechanisms, thereby minimizing the cyber-attack surface. Some other benefits of associating with a managed cloud provider for application and data protection include:
- Continuous Tracking and Incident Response – Enterprise applications and data hosted in the cloud require consistent observance to identify and eliminate cybersecurity threats. Managed cloud service professionals use advanced security event management systems to consistently monitor cloud applications/data assets, detect malicious traffic patterns, and counteract threat incidents before the impact.
- Robust Compliance Management – Managed cloud service teams help businesses easily fulfill complex cloud security and compliance requirements. Cloud experts devise and enforce policies/mechanisms to ensure that businesses’ cloud infrastructure adheres to compliance standards. Besides, experts prepare and share reports on how applications and data are protected in the cloud ecosystem. These reports help businesses demonstrate their adherence to regulatory standards during compliance audits.
- Cost-Effectiveness – Hiring and building an in-house team of cloud security experts requires organizations to invest huge amounts in remuneration, training, and tooling support. As an alternative, organizations can hire dedicated security professionals from a managed services provider on a fixed service contract duration. This eliminates the need to provide higher salaries and other overheads. Moreover, managed services providers offer tools and infrastructure support for security professionals, minimizing the subscription and licensing costs for businesses.
4 Security Practices followed by Managed Cloud Services Providers
- Multi-Layered App Defense Integration
When enterprise applications are hosted on the cloud without adequate defense mechanisms, businesses might compromise the integrity of the app’s source code, data, and network configurations. The lack of defense mechanisms makes it easier for malicious actors to penetrate malware in apps and illegally access credentials and records. To overcome such consequences, experts from a cloud computing managed services provider integrate multi-layered defense mechanisms with cloud-powered enterprise apps.
One of the key defense mechanisms that cloud experts integrate with apps is network firewalls. Cloud experts configure these firewalls to establish a secure connection between the application and the Internet ecosystem and evaluate and block malicious requests that access network configurations. Furthermore, cloud specialists integrate other defense key mechanisms, such as code patches and masking controls with the cloud-based enterprise apps. Code patches are incorporated to protect app source code from unauthorized access and masking controls for hashing and concealing credentials or personally identifiable data within the apps. These defense mechanisms protect the overall integrity of enterprise apps.
- Cloud Data Encryption
Cloud data encryption is a key security process implemented by managed cloud service providers to encode data assets within the cloud infrastructure. Cloud specialists use key management systems (KMS) to create and allocate encryption/decryption keys for every data asset. The encryption keys transform data assets into unreadable and tamper-proof files during transit. Similarly, data administrators can share decryption keys with the intended recipients to decrypt and view information within the data assets. This approach helps maintain the reliability and authenticity of data assets in the cloud. Cloud data encryption minimizes the risk of non-compliance with data protection standards like GDPR, PCI DSS, and HIPAA and eliminates regulatory penalties for businesses.
- Identity and Access Management
Managed cloud service providers integrate identity and access management (IAM) frameworks within the cloud infrastructure. This facilitates the secure authorization and authentication of enterprise applications and data assets hosted in the cloud ecosystem. Cloud specialists configure and set up role-based, attribute-based, and least privilege access control using IAM frameworks.
While setting up role-based and attribute-based access control using the IAM framework, cloud experts define the roles and locations of employees within an organization. This enables organizations to establish authorized access to enterprise applications and systems and minimize the mismanagement of personal identifiable information. Similarly, experts configure and implement least privilege access to data assets in the cloud. This ensures that data administrators in organizations can offer minimum access permission to datasets for internal and external users, thereby eliminating data breaches and thefts.
- Application Log Auditing
To improve the performance and security of cloud-hosted enterprise apps, professionals from a managed cloud services provider perform log auditing. Cloud specialists collect and aggregate log data generated by the cloud application’s virtual server. Log data involves details related to access attempts, traffic, and resource utilization. Cloud specialists use advanced analytics tools to analyze the aggregated log data and identify unusual errors and anomalies in real time. Consequently, cloud specialists devise and implement proactive resolution techniques to troubleshoot errors and improve the performance of cloud enterprise apps.
Moreover, log auditing enables cloud specialists to detect unusual app user activities and utilization patterns. By identifying these incidents at the earliest, experts eliminate the risk of potential security breaches and protect the credentials/records within cloud-based enterprise apps.
Closing Thoughts
In essence, protecting enterprise apps and data assets in the cloud environment is crucial for organizations to improve compliance and operational efficiency. However, for the comprehensive protection of resources in the cloud environment, businesses should consider partnering with a trustworthy managed cloud service provider. Dedicated cloud experts execute the above-mentioned time-tested practices and strengthen the security levels of cloud-based enterprise apps and data assets.
Apart from encryption and auditing, experts incorporate disaster recovery mechanisms in the cloud infrastructure. Disaster recovery mechanisms minimize downtime of cloud-hosted enterprise apps and maintain higher service availability. Similarly, disaster recovery mechanisms consistently backup and store cloud data assets in a staging environment, facilitating easy recovery in the event of data loss or theft.