The way forward! Cloud is The Future of Network Security
The way forward! Cloud is The Future of Network Security
Cloud network security is a fundamental element of cloud security. An organisation’s on-premises environment must have the same level of security as its cloud-based infrastructure. The data, apps, and IT resources deployed within enterprise cloud environments and the traffic moving between cloud installations, the enterprise’s intranet, and on-premise data centres must all be protected.
On-premise enterprise networks use network security solutions to execute internal network segmentation, enforce security policies, limit access to corporate systems, and avoid sophisticated threats. Cloud network security offers similar enterprise-grade security for cloud networks and infrastructure.
Why Is It important?
Most public and private cloud offerings from cloud suppliers include security technologies that fall short of enterprise security standards. Businesses employing cloud-based infrastructure must safeguard these assets following their corporate security policies and relevant laws. Traditional perimeter-based defences are ineffective in securing cloud-based infrastructure.
Solutions for cloud network security fix a fundamental security hole in the cloud. Despite the eroding network border, they allow businesses to maintain the same security monitoring and threat prevention level they do in their on-premises environment. To maintain corporate cybersecurity and regulatory compliance, as well as to meet an organisation’s obligations under the cloud shared responsibility model, is crucial.
Customers should make sure they can manage their network security from a single point of control when using the same security vendor for both on-premises and cloud installations. This will increase efficiency, lower TCO, and lower corporate risk.
How Does Cloud Network Security Work?
Software-defined networking (SDN) is used in cloud environments to route traffic through the cloud-based infrastructure of an enterprise. To acquire the visibility and control needed to perform network traffic segmentation, security monitoring, and advanced threat prevention, cloud network security solutions interface with cloud platforms and virtualisation solutions and create virtual security gateways. These cloud-hosted virtual security gates perform and are capable of doing the same things as physical security gateways.
Features
Thanks to a cloud network security solution, a company should have the same level of security in the cloud as it does in its on-premises infrastructure. A cloud network security solution needs to include a few essential features to accomplish this, such as:
Full Network Security Stack: The Next Generation Firewall (NGFW), Intrusion Prevention System (IPS), Anti-Virus, Application Control, URL Filtering, Identity Awareness, Data Loss Prevention (DLP), and Anti-Bot are all integrated into cloud network security services.
Zero-Day Protection: Cloud network security solutions should defend against zero-day attacks to address the quickly changing threat landscape.
SSL/TLS Traffic Inspection: As network communication becomes more encrypted, identifying and stopping rogue connections becomes more challenging. Network security solutions must provide quick and effective SSL/TLS traffic inspection.
Network Segmentation: Network segmentation is crucial for reducing corporate cybersecurity risk and the possibility of lateral attacker movement. Network segmentation and micro-segmentation in cloud environments are made possible by cloud network security solutions.
Unified Security Management: Adopting the cloud increases the complexity of security monitoring and threat management and the digital attack surface for businesses. To optimise operational efficiency, cloud network security solutions should provide integration with an organisation’s current on-premises systems. In a perfect world, security professionals could control all aspects of on-premises and cloud network security from a single interface.
Automation: Cloud deployments are flexible and transient. The volume, velocity, and variety of today’s cyber threats cannot be handled by legacy security approaches mainly relying on human interaction. Additionally, slow and prone to error are manual processes. Automation is crucial for rapid threat response and scalability as cloud infrastructure grows and evolves. Rapid deployment, solution agility, and CI/CD workflow automation are all supported by automated cloud network security solutions. A cloud service that does not support automation and enable it Customers will stop using any cloud service that does not offer high levels of automation since it is impossible to support them.
Secure Remote Access: Remote workers require access to cloud-based resources due to the shift to remote work and cloud computing. Solutions for cloud network security should provide scalable and safe remote access to a company’s cloud-based infrastructure.
Benefits
The level of security that the modern organisation requires cannot be achieved by manually controlling the security tools and configuration options native to cloud platforms. Some of the main advantages of a cloud security solution are:
Higher Availability
Redundancies are frequently included in cloud computing security solutions to guarantee that the application and resources are always accessible. The CDNs in use have distributed, global networks of edge servers that help deliver material efficiently, speed up the performance of applications, and reduce server access. Together, they can manage traffic spikes better than on-premises/hardware solutions.
Effective protection against DDoS Attacks
Cloud security solutions offer the most effective defence against DDoS attacks, which are growing in quantity, size, sophistication, and intensity. Such solutions can fend off volumetric, low-level, and sluggish attacks thanks to their built-in redundancies, customisation options, flexibility, scalability, and intelligence. DDoS attacks are continuously monitored, recognised, analysed, and mitigated with cloud computing security.
Data Security
Data security is built into the top cloud computing security solutions. They have security methods and policies to stop unwanted parties from obtaining private data, such as strict access controls and data encryption.
Pay as you Go Model
Thanks to the cloud security concept, you only pay for what you need and consume instead of making any upfront investments.
Advanced Threat Detection
Cloud computing security can quickly identify attacks using end-point scanning and global threat intelligence. This aids in determining the threats to the organisation’s mission-critical assets in the threat environment.
Regulatory Compliance
Excellent cloud application security vendors support adherence to legal and sector-specific compliance requirements. It accomplishes this through managed security services and improved infrastructure.
Public Cloud and Private Cloud Network Security
Certain cloud service models are better suited to meeting specific business and security demands when firms migrate to the cloud. Businesses must decide between public and private cloud infrastructure for different use cases. They frequently implement a hybrid, multi-cloud system that distributes resources among on-premises infrastructure, public and private cloud environments, and both.
A cloud network security plan for private and public cloud settings should offer strong security. This entails safeguarding east-west flows between cloud-hosted resources inside the same cloud deployment (also known as “lateral mobility”) and north-south data flow entering and exiting the cloud environment.
What Difficulties Does Cloud Network Security Face?
You will occasionally encounter some significant obstacles when implementing your cloud security projects. These are the main difficulties you could experience:
Shadow IT
Even for frequent end users, cloud services—particularly Software as a Service application—are simple to access and utilise. Because of this, many employees sign up for these services without telling their IT department. Shadow IT practitioners use these services to carry out operations and transactions that are not managed or carried out by security-conscious staff. This implies that these procedures will be utterly unprotected. Indeed, how can you defend something you have no idea even exists?
Collateral Damage of DDoS Attacks
When you shift them to the cloud, your workloads become vulnerable to dangers you wouldn’t typically see in traditional IT systems. DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks are one of these dangers. Cyberattacks, known as DDoS, are aimed at IT infrastructure to sabotage services. High traffic volumes primarily identify this type of attack. Collateral damage from DDoS assaults can still affect businesses that aren’t the target, mainly if the target is a public cloud. Because multiple tenants in the public cloud share services and resources, this is likely to occur.
Cloud Misconfigurations
One advantage of cloud computing is that it simplifies many executive functions. Even a junior executive can quickly set up a server or multi-terabyte storage. Sadly, that advantage also makes it very prone to human error. A simple unintentional configuration error that exposes private information or a server instance to the public might easily result in a data breach.
Strategies to minimise risk in cloud network security
The best thing a company can do to reduce risk in its cloud network is to establish a security baseline for the cloud environment. This is in addition to embracing DevSecOps and training staff on how to use a cloud network securely. It is ideal for establishing this baseline before a company utilises a cloud network, but there is always time.
The baseline describes the ideal security configuration for the cloud network. The goal is to ensure that everyone—security, IT, engineering, DevOps, etc.—agrees with what must be done to keep the network secure continuously. The ease of deployment, the rate of change, and shared responsibility are just a few issues that a well-defined baseline may help with.
Businesses can use certain best practices for cloud network security to create this standard. First, the baseline should outline the architecture of the cloud environment, the optimal configuration for each type of asset, and the read and write access rights for each component of the environment. The baseline should also be defined using manuals like the CIS Benchmarks and the AWS Well-Architected Framework.
Make that the baseline covers the test and pre-production environments. These settings have frequently been utilised as a point of entry for attacks. Make that the baseline outlines the rules and regulations for testing, including which (if any) production databases may be utilised or replicated.
The baseline should clearly outline who is in charge of certain parts of cloud security on an ongoing basis and layout incident response methods. It should also be reviewed and updated frequently to reflect new threats and improved procedures.
Everyone interacting with the cloud network must be informed of the baseline when it has been established or updated. The security team must also collaborate with DevOps to establish strategies for enforcing the baseline.
Mitigating risks in a hybrid or multi-cloud environment
Security teams should ensure they have (at a bare minimum) read-only access to all of the organisation’s cloud accounts to address the difficulties associated with visibility into cloud networks. A single team should protect every aspect of the IT footprint if an organisation wants to secure and maintain visibility in a hybrid or multi-cloud environment. Having separate teams in charge of cloud security, on-premises security, and cloud security frequently creates silos and blind spots. It is challenging to follow a hostile actor who moves between the networks.
Teams working to secure hybrid or multi-cloud systems should consider reevaluating their tools. The support for cloud networks is only sometimes optimal in outdated security systems. To safeguard its on-premises and cloud infrastructures as a consequence, teams use various solutions. The team should seek out systems to centrally manage security across the organisation’s complete IT infrastructure.
The biggest cloud cybersecurity threats of 2023
Malware
Malicious software, like viruses and worms, is injected into systems and networks to cause havoc. Malware can infiltrate computers, steal sensitive data, and block services.
Malware is monitored and stopped before it enters networks and systems using firewalls and antivirus software, but malicious actors constantly develop new malware to get around existing protections. This makes it crucial to keep security software and firewalls up to date.
Supply chain vulnerabilities
The scale of the threat surface for supply chain hacks, such as the well-known SolarWinds attack that affected numerous government agencies and maybe less well-known exploits leveraging JS.node vulnerabilities, is wherever that contaminated software goes.
In the instance of SolarWinds’ Orion update, that surface comprised hundreds of consulting, technology, telecom, and mining companies throughout North America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. To guarantee that the entire supply chain is secure, businesses can audit the security measures that their vendors and suppliers apply.
Phishing
Most people have seen suspicious emails at some point, or even worse, emails that look real and come from a reputable source but are not. Phishing is the term for this email scam. The software can only do so much in terms of social engineering defence.
Because it’s simple for unwary workers to click fake emails and spread malware, phishing poses a severe threat to businesses. Training employees to spot fake emails, report them, and never open them can be beneficial. To ensure that good email habits are taught, IT should collaborate with HR.
IoT
As IoT grows, security risks also increase, especially with the introduction of 5G telecoms, which have become the de facto communications network for connected devices.
IoT vendors are infamous for implementing little to no security on their devices, which poses a vulnerability that may be reduced by conducting a more thorough RFP security screening of IoT vendors upfront and resetting default IoT security settings on devices to comply with corporate standards.
Conclusion
The greatest strategy to safeguard your company and make plans for boosting cloud security in 2023 is to be proactive. You could lose millions of dollars due to a single breach in lost data, fines, and regulatory action. To keep one step ahead of attackers, it will be helpful to understand the threats on the horizon and account for them in your processes.
