Cloud Computing Security: Best Practices In 2024

Colonel Sanders’ KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken) is known for its fried chicken and is often marketed as a “Secret Recipe”, “Original Recipe” or “One of the biggest trade secrets in the world” - KFC’s recipe is indeed unique!

It’s such a big secret that KFC employs two different firms to produce the spice mix made from 11 ingredients, each possessing half of the recipe. When the first half is made, it’s sent to the other company to be combined with the remaining ingredients.

While a copy of the recipe (signed by Colonel Sanders) is stored in a vault at KFC’s headquarters, sitting beside 11 vials of the ingredients, the company hasn’t revealed any digital copy (surely, there must be one?).

Moving away from the finger-lickin’ good food, most companies now store their data, both confidential and public, online. Moreover, they use mountains of data in their daily processes. Owing to the multitude of benefits, businesses have begun migrating their operations and mission-critical workloads to cloud environments, to leverage quick, flexible and efficient operations.

This brings up a key question – what's being done about cloud security?

According to a report, 39 seconds is the average time span between two cyber-attacks on a global scale. Moreover, considering the rise of malware attacks, security breaches and threat vectors are evolving with each passing day. Businesses need to adhere to the best practices to secure their clouds!

So, read on to discover what the most common security issues are, what the importance of cloud security is and what businesses should do to protect themselves in 2024!
 

What Are The Most Common Cloud Computing Security Issues?

“Know your enemy.” Have you heard of this phrase derived from Sun Tzu's The Art of War?

If not, you’ve surely heard of “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer” (also Sun Tzu), right?

Either way, businesses need to know who they must safeguard themselves from and where their shortcomings lie. Let’s dive into where businesses falter when it comes to Cloud Computing Security issues. While some threats originate externally, some are also homegrown. The top threats include:
 

• Misconfiguration

  It’s not the easiest thing to always get the settings right. It’s a daily struggle to balance the hot and cold water while taking a shower. When it comes to businesses, they need to be safer with their security, considering misconfiguration of access controls, open ports and security settings can lead to exposed vulnerable points. This can be offset by implementing rigorous security policies and automated scanning tools.

• Breaches, Losses And Privacy Concerns

  Businesses love data. If they could, they’d store the entire world’s data and storage wouldn’t be a problem as they leverage cloud solutions. However, as they migrate data to the cloud, it opens the door to the prying eyes and unauthorized access of cybercriminals who’d love to hold companies to ransom to avoid data leaks of sensitive information to maintain their reputation. #BetterSecurityTools

• Insider Threats

  As per a report, 95% of cybersecurity breaches are caused by human error, highlighting the critical role that employee awareness and training play in data security. Sometimes, breaches occur due to negligent employees, while occasionally, the malicious actor resides within the organization. With cloud services increasing the exposed area, monitoring threats effectively can become tougher. The use of third-party vendors, insecure APIs and providing overprivileged access hinders security further.

• Advanced Persistent Threats

  If you end up eating stale or bad food and fall sick because you can’t see the germs in the food, do you blame your body for being unable to cope? Nope! Similarly, sometimes the threats are just too sophisticated to spot at the first glance. This is what happens when businesses face advanced persistent threats, where threats like advanced malware or denial-of-service (DoS) attacks remain undetected or disrupt the business’ control.

Needless to say, Cloud Computing Security is important. How important, you ask?
 

What Is The Importance Of Cloud Computing Security?

Businesses must pick a compatible security solution before narrowing down on a cloud provider, while they’re transitioning and even when using the cloud. This is where picking a cloud provider that can cater to the customizations a business needs becomes important. Additionally, businesses must stay updated with the latest trends, tools and offerings by security providers.

These are done by leveraging the 4 types of Cloud Computing Security controls, which are deterrent controls (which block malicious attacks on cloud systems), preventive controls (which eliminate vulnerabilities), detective controls (which identify and react to security threats and controls) and corrective controls (which limit damage post-attack).

Using effective security provides businesses with centralized and real-time security, which in turn helps enhance traffic analysis, web filtering, quicker management and lowered burden on endpoint security. It can also help in reducing the expenditure on administration manpower and hardware while improving reliability and enabling authorized access from anywhere.


All this means nothing if businesses don’t make an effort to enhance their cloud security. Let’s explore what the best practices are!
 

How Can Businesses Secure Their Cloud Infrastructure?

Owing to the widespread adoption of cloud computing and cloud infrastructure, businesses are accelerating their security efforts, looking for all kinds of technologies that can enhance their protective measures. Some of the best practices include:
 

• Leveraging AI, ML And Automation

  You’ve surely heard enough about the capabilities of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) at this point. Just like other industries, this technology is redefining cybersecurity in cloud infrastructures. The combination of AI and ML offers businesses the ability to detect anomalies, identify threats, respond rapidly and analyze logs in real time. It also acts as a perpetual security personnel that enables automation and streamlining of cloud-based workloads such as software updates, patch management, scanning for vulnerabilities and more.

• Using Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASBs)

  Imagine if you could scan every dish that was served to you at a restaurant for harmful microbes and bacteria to ensure anything that you ate wasn’t infected (but remember to wash your hands!). That’s what businesses get from CASBs. This tool acts as a security guard at the entrance that checks and controls the movement of all those trying to access the cloud. This helps prevent unauthorized access to the cloud while also preventing data leaks, enforcing security policies, enhancing cloud usage visibility and unifying security controls.

• Embracing Zero Trust

  Trust no one! That’s what zero trust security is all about in a nutshell. This strategic approach helps businesses protect themselves by requiring users to authenticate and verify themselves. This technique brings in stricter access controls, continuous verification of users and identities, scanning device health and other measures before granting access. Essentially, businesses are embracing this technique in their cloud to reduce attack surfaces and risks of breaches.

• Securing Data And Infrastructure As Code (IaC)

  We began by establishing the value data holds in the eyes of a business. Suffice it to say, protecting data should be paramount for them. Businesses should implement data masking, data encryption, granular access controls and DLP (data loss prevention) solutions to protect their cloud data and apps, while also reviewing their data classification and compliance efforts. On the other hand, they should ensure they strengthen the foundational code used in cloud-based apps and servers by securing IaC scripts, coding practices and configurations.

• Enhancing Security Awareness

  Change starts at home! For businesses, looking inward is key in securing their cloud infrastructure. This includes educating employees about the importance of cloud computing security, cyber threats, best practices, reporting issues and more. Additionally, security teams should be clear when drafting security strategies, defining requirements, developing detailed plans, performing due diligence, building threat models, embracing transparency, prioritizing risk management, creating SSO solutions and enhancing DDoS protection.

That’s it, folks – all the things you need to be aware of to secure your cloud infrastructure and deployments!
 

Wrapping It Up

Cloud computing is reforming the business world with its capabilities and there’s no question that it faces numerous risks from bad actors, cybercriminals (both within and outside the organization) and other vulnerabilities. This makes it important to enforce the best practices for Cloud Computing Security.

While some of the solutions lie in specialized tools and technologies, businesses can fortify themselves from within by educating their employees. A secure cloud is an efficient cloud!