Cloud technology is revolutionizing the way businesses operate by enabling collaboration among distributed workforces and facilitating the quick scaling of digital workloads. A recent Microsoft survey highlighted the growing importance of cloud technology, with 95% of respondents stating that it is critical to their organization’s success. Furthermore, 86% of respondents revealed plans to increase their investments in hybrid cloud and multicloud tech (Microsoft, 2022).
However, along with the benefits of cloud technology, there are also significant risks that organizations must address. The complexity of hybrid and multicloud environments presents challenges for security teams when it comes to identifying and resolving risks. Security teams are often tasked with monitoring fragmented tools across different clouds, making it difficult to create a unified view of their overall security posture (Microsoft, 2022).
Microsoft’s research conducted earlier this year found that many decision-makers believe their current cybersecurity strategies are inadequate for securing multicloud environments. In fact, 86% of surveyed decision-makers expressed concerns about the effectiveness of their existing strategies (Microsoft, 2023). Given these concerns, organizations need to adapt their security approach to ensure they can effectively protect their cloud environments.
One crucial step in enhancing cloud security is to establish a single-pane-of-glass view. Cloud technology offers agility and scalability by detaching workloads from physical devices and IT infrastructure. However, this flexibility can make it challenging for organizations to keep track of their various workloads, data streams, and applications spread across multiple cloud platforms and on-premises locations. To secure hybrid or multicloud environments, organizations must have visibility and cross-platform control in a single-pane-of-glass view. This allows them to visualize the security posture of multiple workloads simultaneously, regardless of their location (Microsoft, 2022).
Another important aspect of cloud security is the integration of security and compliance into the development process. Traditionally, security and compliance were separate from development, making it difficult for development and security teams to protect cloud-native applications. Microsoft’s Enterprise DevOps Report revealed that more than half of enterprises do not integrate security into their DevOps pipelines (Microsoft, 2020). To address this issue, organizations can leverage cloud-native application protection platforms (CNAPPs) that integrate security and development silos into a single, easily accessible platform. CNAPPs enable increased collaboration and integration between development and security teams while minimizing the risk of code issues moving into the cloud. By combining infrastructure-as-code scanning signals with data sensitivity, identity, and runtime intelligence, CNAPPs provide security teams with comprehensive recommendations and risk prioritization within the context of the hybrid or multicloud network (Microsoft, 2022).
Furthermore, organizations must fortify their security hygiene by implementing effective threat detection and response mechanisms. Proactive threat detection plays a crucial role in safeguarding cloud environments against potential cybersecurity breaches. Organizations should thoroughly assess the connections between applications, data stores, and workstreams to anticipate possible routes that threat actors might exploit to compromise operations. A cohesive and collaborative approach to cloud security, involving key stakeholders such as developers, security administrators, and security operations center analysts, is vital in ensuring an organization’s overall security coverage. This approach can involve integrating anti-malware scanning tools into DevOps processes to protect code against malware or implementing measures to harden container security, thereby preventing unauthorized access to the network (Microsoft, 2022).
In conclusion, while cloud technology offers numerous benefits for businesses, it also poses significant security challenges. Organizations must adapt their security approach to effectively protect hybrid and multicloud environments. This includes establishing a single-pane-of-glass view to visualize the security posture of all workloads, integrating security and compliance into the development process through CNAPPs, and implementing robust threat detection and response mechanisms. By prioritizing cloud security and adopting these best practices, organizations can mitigate the risks associated with cloud technology and ensure the continued success of their digital operations (Microsoft, 2022).