What is Cloud Security? Addressing Modern Threats and Best Practices

In recent years, cloud computing and security have turned from an emerging technology to an essential technology. It becomes the backbone for modern businesses to operate smoothly. 

However, concerns about cloud security threats have risen over the years. Check Point Cloud Security Report for 2024 highlights cloud security threats have marked a significant increase from 24% last year to 61% in 2024. It is a critical surge with a 154% increment in cloud threats and 61% of organizations report significant disruptions.

In the meantime, knowing about the potential threats and vulnerabilities with the reasons to minimize security risks can be invaluable. Businesses need to make a balance to fulfil the need for increasing productivity and taking measures for security threats to growing overall results. 

It may seem challenging to cater to the modern-age security challenges, but taking some tech precautions can be helpful. To simplify the cloud security process, this blog will delve into the technical aspects of it, why it’s important, types, features, and so on. 

Without any delay, let’s start by first understanding what cloud security is.

What is Cloud Security? 

Cloud security is a set of measures ensuring the protection of cloud-based applications, data, and infrastructure. It is designed to secure the business’s cloud environment from both internal and external potential threats like data theft and data leak. 

Simply put, cloud computing security is a shield that protects your cloud system from the data to infrastructure from unauthorized access. It is made up of various controls and technologies, inclusive of hardware, software, and networks.

As businesses move to the cloud environment, transferring data securely and safely is their prime concern. Cloud security is becoming the perfect choice of technology for those companies who want innovation to cater to their customer’s expectations. But they want some security measures to protect data, applications, etc across the cloud, while cloud migration from on-premises to cloud infrastructure.

However, cloud security is a shared responsibility between the user and cloud provider to adhere to the relevant regulatory compliances that ensure the safety and security of your cloud system. 

Why is Cloud Security Important?

Cloud Security is important as it protects all the crucial data on the cloud. The taken measures ensure that data is safe and accessible. 

In the current business dynamics, the number of businesses transitioning from on-premises to cloud-based environments is rising significantly. This increased transition to cloud migration necessitates the business understanding cloud computing and its critical security requirements.

This helps in stating your business requirements clearly and ensuring that the cloud services, such as computing, storage, networking, and more, are aligned properly with them. Moreover, your business teams can get an idea of what services they want to leverage in the business and what is not needed, thereby reducing your IT cost. Moreover, with an understanding of the right security practices, your teams can ensure that the cloud provider is offering you the correct security services and the right adherence to relevant compliances. 

How Does Cloud Security Work?

The main work of cloud security is to implement policies and processes together, which ensures compliance with regulations, provides authentication options, and protects data with utmost privacy. Cloud security protects the stored important data on the cloud from security threats, data breaches, data theft, unauthorized access, etc. 

As cloud services are provided by different providers, but, implementing cloud security solutions is not only the sole responsibility of cloud service providers. It often follows a shared responsibility model, referring to the cloud provider and users (you) both being responsible for the security of cloud computing services. 

However, implementing successful cloud security strategies is not easy, there are various security challenges that a business should know about. It will help them avoid when transitioning to the cloud.

Most Common Cloud Security Challenges and How to Resolve Them?

Again as the cloud is evolving continuously, more businesses transitioning from on-premises to cloud environments. It eventually increases the risk of data theft, malware, phishing, data loss, and cyber attacks. 

If you are willing to transition towards a cloud environment, here are some cloud security challenges that you must be aware of.

1. Unauthorized Access 

This is the most common and major cloud security risk. As the cloud is directly accessible from the public internet, it makes it easier to access for users along with the attackers. Also, most businesses do not focus on configuring their resources properly, causing unauthorized access. This can happen when someone finds flaws like login information, application flaws, etc for data theft.

How to Resolve: To avoid unauthorized access to cloud computing security threats, it is essential for businesses to configure authentication properly. Also, they must ensure that sensitive passwords are not compromised.

2. Lack of Visibility

Businesses using cloud-based services or resources operate on an infrastructure that a third party owns. This indicates that cloud providers get full control over some areas that companies can not have access. If there is a security flaw in these areas where users have lack of visibility, they can not find them. Eventually, you can not fix the flaws without finding them.

The lack of visibility limits the ability of organizations to monitor and respond to cyber threats. This even leaves them to non-comply with the standard regulations. Also, this requires them to discover more assets and manage them. 

How to Avoid: Businesses should consider the cloud service model (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS) that fulfills their requirements. Also, they can make sure that the chosen cloud provider complies with the regulations.

3. Account Hacking

Account hacking is another major cloud security risk. The transition from traditional on-premises workloads to cloud-based services increases the account hacking risk. If Attackers get unauthorized access by using password guessing or stealing login credentials, it refers to account hijacking, leading to data theft or manipulation in the cloud.

How to Avoid: Businesses and their users must be aware of protecting their accounts with strong passwords and enable security checks & two-factor authentications. It will decrease the risk of account hijacking and limit access to their accounts.

4. Misconfiguration

Cloud misconfiguration refers to a security risk that occurs when some error is made during the development or maintenance of cloud-based applications. In addition, it can happen when the permissions and access controls are not configured appropriately. It leads to leaving some sensitive data accessible publicly. This can happen when not using the proper security measures in deployment.

How to Avoid: Businesses can avoid cloud misconfiguration security risks by configuring applications properly. They can also use cloud storage services that facilitate encryption and access control. Additionally, getting double check after the deployment or maintenance can help them avoid such scenarios.

5. Zero-Day Vulnerability

In the cloud, zero-day vulnerability refers to a security flaw that is discovered by developers but they get no time to fix this issue. Such issues occur due to coding or design flaws during cloud application deployment. For example, a zero-day vulnerability was discovered by attackers in Microsoft that has been exploited for over a year.

How to Avoid: Such issues are hard to defend as they are unknown by businesses. However, following a few strategies can prevent such attacks.

• Keeps your cloud applications up-to-date.
• Use multi-factor authentications such as two-factor authentications.
• Perform regular vulnerability tests.
• Implement IP security protocols such as IPsec.
• Deploy security applications. 

6. Insider Threats

In cloud security, insider threats refer to the potential risks that occur by individuals within an enterprise who have access to cloud services and applications. These individuals can be anyone from staff, business partners, etc who can accidentally or intentionally misuse the authorized access to expose the sensitive data.

How to Avoid: Insider threats can be avoided by limiting access to people to use cloud services and data. Businesses can use strong biometric authentication and train employees with a security awareness program. Also, they can use behavioral analytics of users’ activity checks like their login time and location patterns.

7. Cloud Regulatory Compliances

Using cloud computing services often involves managing and storing sensitive and critical data. It must fulfill the regulatory requirements as not complying with these regulations can result in legal consequences. As this process looks rigorous to businesses, they overlooked this, leading to legal impacts. 

How to Avoid: Businesses should first understand all crucial cloud regulatory policies to overcome this cloud security risk. Training employees on regulatory compliance and regularly monitoring compliance can help to avoid legal repercussions.

These are the most common cloud security risks with solutions for businesses to avoid them. However, enterprises can mitigate these risks by understanding the essential pillars of cloud security.

Understanding Key Pillars of Cloud Security

Cloud security is developing with time, but with this continuous evolvement, a range of security threats is also rising. To protect your businesses from potential risks, currently, various types of cloud security solutions are available. However, this section covers the key pillars that mitigate cloud security risk:

1. Identity and Access Management (IAM)

This indicates that only authorized users can access the resources on the cloud. It allows administrators to give access to specific on-premises or cloud resources. There are various IAM techniques including multi-factor authentication and password management. Additionally, IAM facilitates each user with digital identities, allowing businesses or managers to restrict and monitor their activity.

2. Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)

SIEM is a software solution and cloud security approach that blends potential risk and threat identification data together into a unified system. Then it helps businesses to improve the detection and rectification of security issues to provide utmost security with extra layers. 

Security Information and Event Management solutions provide businesses with capabilities so they can collect, analyze, detect, and respond to potential security threats.

3. Public Key Infrastructure (PKI)

Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) is a set of tools or frameworks used to manage public keys for encryption. It is the most common method used currently, facilitating data transfers over the internet. 

It is built into all web browsers, helping to secure public internet traffic transport. Businesses can use PKI to secure communication ways internally in the org or externally with clients around the globe. 

4. Cloud Data Loss Prevention (DLP)

Cloud data loss prevention is a set of solutions that protects business’s sensitive and important information from potential threats, accidental exposure, etc. It helps to protect the sensitive data within the organization’s cloud storage from leaks.  

Businesses can use this when their employees transition into a hybrid work-from-home model. It increased the data breach risk as the mode of data usage changed from traditional setups to the cloud. So, Cloud DLP ensures businesses protect sensitive data in such scenarios.

Benefits of Cloud Security

Cloud security is often seen as an extra effort when transitioning to cloud services. However, cloud computing is no less secure than traditional on-premises security. Instead, implementing cloud security offers numerous benefits to businesses while providing enhanced security. Here are some of the key benefits:

1. Behavioral Analysis

Increasing use of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning algorithms in cloud computing security leads to user behavior analysis. It ensures detection of any suspicious login, login hours, etc that can lead to unauthorized access or insider threats. This gives businesses increased visibility to secure their cloud system. 

2. Data Loss Prevention

Cloud security provides data security with strong access controls, encryption modes, and most importantly data loss prevention. Such cloud security features ensure businesses that their data is safe and secure. 

3. Real-time Monitoring

Cloud security offers real-time monitoring of the cloud infrastructure. This provides on-time security risk alerts and ensures users can address misconfiguration timely. In addition, it gives enhanced visibility into the security status of the cloud to take action promptly.

4. Enhanced and Centralized Protection

Implementing cloud security measures provides you with a centralized location for all your applications and sensitive data. With the centralized system, it simplifies monitoring and control over security policies. In addition, businesses can perform tasks such as managing disaster recovery, and software updates easily.

5. Cost Savings

Another advantage of cloud security is businesses do not have to pay for a dedicated or different platform to upgrade the level of security. Also, cloud service providers provide advanced security features without any additional cost. So, cloud computing is cost-saving in comparison to traditional on-premises solutions.

6. Compliance with Standard Regulations

Cloud service providers comply with industry regulations and standard international rules. So, businesses do not have to go through rigorous verifications of security and privacy regulations. 

These are the key benefits of cloud security that businesses can get when they move to cloud infrastructure. 

Emerging Trends in Cloud Security 

As cloud computing is continuously evolving, businesses must know how to protect cloud infrastructure from potential threats. So, it can be valuable to explore the latest trends in cloud security to prevent potential threats. 

AI and Machine Learning in Security

As cloud computing use is rising swiftly, the chance of new risks and threats is increasing with this. However, the changing AI-powered cloud security provides alerts upon threat detection. The system even takes immediate response to block suspicious activity. 

Leveraging AI and ML models in cloud security helps to predict potential threats based on historical data. This allows organizations to implement security measures to protect their cloud infrastructure from potential risks and threats.

Zero Trust Model

Currently, the Zero Trust model has been beneficial in the cloud environment and provides a better level of security. Simply, the Zero Trust model verifies users and devices each time before giving access to the resources. It does not matter whether users want to access from the same location or device. This adds an extra level of security and ensures businesses are prevented from data breaches. 

Quantum-Resistant Encryption

With the rise of security attacks by breaking the traditional encryption model, the requirement for strong encryption will rise in the coming years. In 2024, many organizations like IBM, adopted quantum-resistant encryption solutions. It ensures long-term data security and protects cloud infrastructure from potential threats. 

Implementing Cloud Native Security Solutions (CNSS)

With the increasing cloud adoption, businesses require strong cloud security measures. With this, the need for CNSS and its implementation is also increasing. Therefore, by drafting a well-planned cloud adoption strategy while keeping CNSS in place, you can get a unified security module. This way, you can easily integrate it with existing systems and streamline workflows. 

How to Secure Cloud Infrastructure? Best Practices for Cloud Security

When organizations transition from on-premises to cloud infrastructure, it is vital to know the ways to make this process successful. Here are some cloud computing security best practices that businesses must follow while moving to cloud infrastructure.

1. Understanding Cloud Usage Requirement 

Firstly, it is essential to understand your cloud usage requirement by identifying your sensitive and critical data. Also, it will help to classify data and examine the potential risks. You can begin by taking audit configurations of IaaS service providers like Azure to ensure network configuration, encryption, etc.

2. Choosing a Reliable Cloud Service Provider

Choosing a cloud service provider is the next step after understanding your requirements. However, it is necessary to rely on a cloud provider who offers strong encryption, access control, and authentication features, and most importantly complies with relevant security standards. A key aspect to evaluate is the cloud security architecture of the provider.. It refers to the overall design and implementation of the cloud security measure in their cloud environment. Also, checking the cost of security for different providers can help choose a better CSP.

3. Remember the Shared Security Responsibilities

Data security in cloud computing is not only the sole responsibility of cloud providers. The major cloud providers work on a shared responsibility. So, if you want to secure your cloud infrastructure, it is essential to know about your responsibility like securing applications and infrastructure on your own. The shared responsibilities areas change to the cloud service model of IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS.

4. Use Strong Authentications  

Using strong authentication is the next step that businesses should not avoid. Setting strong passwords and using authentication methods like multifactor authentication (MFA) can reduce the risk of unauthorized access. Additionally, businesses can use the encryption features provided by CSPs or they can rely on third-party encryption to secure their stored data. It will eventually decrease the chances of unauthorized access and data theft.

5. Ensure Following Regulatory Compliances 

While transitioning to cloud infrastructure, businesses need to ensure that chosen cloud providers follow regulatory compliance such as HIPAA, PCI DSS, etc. It will ensure compliance with the standard regulatory requirements and avoid legal consequences. Also, they can check the following security regulations on a timely basis or can define clear roles for a dedicated person to do so.

6. Implement Access Control

Implementing robust access control can help businesses limit access. It ensures restricting people who can see sensitive data, eventually reducing the data breach risk. Also, access control allows businesses to set role-based permission as per their job. They can even make this strong by setting multi-factor authentication. In addition, regularly checking user access allows for the removal of unnecessary permissions.

7. Ensure Using Secure APIs

APIs give users access to cloud computing services, so it is essential to secure APIs as they can be vulnerable to security breaches. Businesses can use API gateways, monitor API activity, update dependencies, and identify vulnerabilities to secure APIs. In addition, securing API with encryption can minimize unauthorized access.

8. Conduct Regular Audits and Pen-testing 

Another best practice for cloud computing security is conducting regular audits and pen-testing that will help to determine whether the current measures are sufficient to secure the cloud environment. It is a kind of ethical hacking to improve the security levels and explore potential security threats.

9. Train Your Employees

When transitioning from on-premises to cloud infrastructure, enterprises should ensure to educate their employees. They can be aware of the potential risks of storing data in cloud services and how to secure data. Thus, provide your employees with regular awareness training, so they can detect suspicious activities.

Businesses can enhance their overall security by following the best practices for cloud security.

Final Take

As more businesses want to make their way from on-premises infrastructure to cloud computing services, Gartner predicts that more than 50% of enterprises will use cloud platforms by 2028. This is a huge number that enlightens the importance of cloud. To leverage the full potential of cloud computing services, embracing cloud security is essential.

If you are willing to transition from on-premises to cloud infrastructure, we at Cyntexa provide cloud consulting services. Our team of industry experts will ensure a seamless transition towards the cloud with the utmost security of your data.