Top 7 Challenges for Cloud Security in 2023
According to Zippia, nearly 94% of the organisations have already adopted cloud services for hosting applications, running their servers and storing critical data.
Cloud computing just does not give the flexibility to access the data from anywhere at any time but it is one of the most convenient and cost-effective options to improve collaboration and communication within the organisation.
The adoption of cloud services have increased the challenges regarding its security. Traditional and on-premises security controls are redundant and they are unable to resolve these security issues.
There are some cloud security challenges that organisations need to follow in order to protect their infrastructure from cyberattacks. Here are some of these:
System Misconfigurations
According to StrongDM, cloud system misconfiguration accounts for 15% of initial cyber attack vectors in security breaches.
During system setup and operations, if there are some infrastructure misconfigurations make your entire cloud architecture vulnerable. A system misconfiguration occurs through common issues like –
- Easy-to-guess credentials of all users
- Unlimited privileged access to network resources
- Granting outbound access to RDP or SSH
Firstly, these system misconfigurations can be resolved if the aforementioned mentioned issues are resolved. For example, limiting privileged access, knowing the full range of open ports, use of API keys, passwords or encryption, configured cloud buckets, blocking ICMP, secured automated backups and more.
Unavailability of Cloud Security Experts
Well, this goes beyond saying that cloud architecture and its security requires a specialised knowledge. And, unfortunately, skilled labour and cloud specialists availability has not yet catched up to the demand.
As a result, organisations rely on outsourced managed services in order to help them build, deploy, maintain and secure their cloud computing services. And, due to this, cloud security somewhere remains in question.
According to a report by Cybersecurity Action Team, cloud softwares is the most frequently targeted in 2022’s third quarter. This is statistics enough that directs towards organisations’ need for levelling up their security game in 2023.
Reluctance on Going Beyond Legacy Solutions
Nowadays, organisations are adopting newer and newer technologies and methods to keep up with the competition. As we are incorporating a new technology, there should be a new security framework and a strategy to curb security challenges.
In a cloud infrastructure, resources run on servers and the data is stored centrally, which makes it convenient for all the users to access it from anywhere. A traditional security system that offers a firewall and on-premises network credentials do not suffice the security issues.
Evolving beyond legacy security solutions and building a Zero-Trust architecture is the key as it priorities the security at the application level.
Use of Open-Source Technology
Open-Source Technology is nothing new in the world of cloud computing. It helps make deployment and development much faster as compared but then it has a lot of security issues, which, if unchecked, can prove fatal for your organisation.
Generally, open-source code is rarely certified by a cloud service provider. And, you don’t find a product support team to help minimise the development or integration issues. As a result, there are a lot of misconfigurations in the codes that invite security breach.
Identity and Access Management
Identity and access management controls which user can access what resources. The security challenge here is that it does not verify each user for an individual or the entire cluster of applications rather than authenticating the user for the entire network.
Organisations must establish a granular control in their cloud architecture because users access resources at the application. Furthermore, an organisation can hire a personnel to control the user access, storing identity credentials, track logging activities, and more.
Data Security Non-Compliance
Managing compliance is one of the major risks of a cloud security breach if an organisation does not have a proper method to vet cloud providers. Sometimes, these cloud providers’ security systems are not configured according to the regulations set aside.
As a result, these cloud providers are washed over with huge fines and are unable to protect their customer’s privacy. Hence, this data security non-compliance also causes a security challenge for the organisation when such cloud providers are outsourced.
Staying in compliance with Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCIDSS) is a must and all the technology providers should meet their regulatory guidelines.
Reduced Visibility and Auditing Capabilities
A clean auditing and reporting system within the organisation helps reduce data security breaches. Maintaining activity logs with real-time user and resource data facilities helps the response teams within the organisations.
Not only this, it helps pinpoint breach sources and locations so that the concerned team can isolate them to reduce their impact on the entire network.
Regular auditing helps reduce the possibility of malware/virus in the cloud system which can further cause a breach or theft of crucial information.
Final Words
So, it is evident that with the advancement in the technology, there are higher chances of security challenges. Which is why it is recommended that there should be an advancement in the security arena as well.
With every new solution, there is undoubtedly a security challenge that organisations need to realize and overcome.