Cloud Security Services

Cloud computing is the delivery of hosted services, including software, hardware, and storage, over the Internet. The benefits of rapid deployment, flexibility, low up-front costs, and scalability, have made cloud computing virtually universal among organizations of all sizes, often as part of a hybrid/multi-cloud infrastructure architecture.

Cloud security refers to the technologies, policies, controls, and services that protect cloud data, applications, and infrastructure from threats.

Cloud Security is a Shared Responsibility

Cloud security is a responsibility that is shared between the cloud provider and the customer. There are basically three categories of responsibilities in the Shared Responsibility Model: responsibilities that are always the provider’s, responsibilities that are always the customer’s, and responsibilities that vary depending on the service model: Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), or Software as a Service (SaaS), such as cloud email.

The security responsibilities that are always the provider’s are related to the safeguarding of the infrastructure itself, as well as access to, patching, and configuration of the physical hosts and the physical network on which the compute instances run and the storage and other resources reside.

The security responsibilities that are always the customer’s include managing users and their access privileges (identity and access management), the safeguarding of cloud accounts from unauthorized access, the encryption and protection of cloud-based data assets, and managing its security posture (compliance).

The Top 7 Advanced Cloud Security Challenges

Because the public cloud does not have clear perimeters, it presents a fundamentally different security reality. This becomes even more challenging when adopting modern cloud approaches such as automated Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) methods, distributed serverless architectures, and ephemeral assets like Functions as a Service and containers.

1. Increased Attack Surface
2. Lack of Visibility and Tracking
3. Ever-Changing Workloads
4. DevOps, DevSecOps and Automation
5. Granular Privilege and Key Management
6. Complex Environments
7. Cloud Compliance and Governance

The 6 Pillars of Robust Cloud Security

While cloud providers such as Microsoft Azure (Azure), Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Google Cloud Platform (GCP) offer many cloud native security features and services, supplementary third-party solutions are essential to achieve enterprise-grade cloud workload protection from breaches, data leaks, and targeted attacks in the cloud environment. Only an integrated cloud-native/third-party security stack provides the centralized visibility and policy-based granular control necessary to deliver the following industry best practices:

We offer granular, policy-based IAM and authentication controls across complex infrastructures.
We offer zero-trust cloud network security controls across logically isolated networks and micro-segments.
We offer enforcement of virtual server protection policies and processes such as change management and software updates.
We offer  safeguarding all applications (and especially cloud-native distributed apps) with a next-generation web application firewall.
We offer enhanced data protection.
We offer threat intelligence that detects and remediates known and unknown threats in real-time.

Contact Us to learn how Proactive’s Cloud Security experts can guide you through these complexities.