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As a result of the widespread adoption of public and private cloud, companies must rethink their network security strategies. While it’s tempting to think that you can just leave cloud security to your cloud provider, it’s too important not to play an active role in securing your resources in the cloud.
Think of it like this, would you leave your on-prem network security up to the company that physically built your infrastructure? No, you invest in dedicated security tools like NGFWs, IPS, WAFs, and more to secure, detect, and protect your network from intrusion. A similar strategy must be replicated in the cloud.
In order to develop a comprehensive cloud security strategy, there are several challenges that must be overcome.
As technology has evolved at a rapid pace, so too has cybersecurity threats. Data breaches are now costing companies on average of $4 million per incident, with the likelihood of a breach evolving from not if you will be breached, to when will it happen? The widespread adoption of the cloud for at least a portion of workloads and storage has expanded the threat landscape. Companies need to take adequate measures to protect their public and private clouds with the same level of security as their traditional data centers. 
Employee negligence can be a major risk to network security. While IT teams have trained employees about best practices related to issues like phishing emails and protecting intellectual property with BYOD guidelines, training needs to be revamped with cloud in mind. Lack of end user awareness and training on appropriate cloud security measures will lead to a greater risk of a breach.
Blind spots have always been an inherent risk for organizations. You don’t know, and can’t protect against, what you can’t see. Companies have been creating network visibility strategies for their on-prem networks for years, comprised of network TAPs, bypass switches, and network packet brokers. Cloud platforms inherently have blind spots, as most traditional visibility tools were not built with cloud in mind. Today there are cloud TAPs that can be used to provide cloud packet visibility to monitoring tools and services to begin eliminating blind spots, and improving overall cloud security.
Developing a comprehensive cloud security strategy won’t happen overnight. It’s important to start documenting what resources you have from your cloud provider and what tools and resources your organization has added. From there you will have a better understanding of the gaps that need to be addressed.
If lack of visibility into your cloud resources remains an issue, Garland Technology has solutions that can provide packet level visibility to your security and monitoring tools. Contact us today to learn more!