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Cloud Security encompasses a wide range of best practices that prevent or mitigate cloud-based attacks. These include granting access to data and services on a need-to-know basis, monitoring and auditing for misconfigurations, encrypting traffic between the cloud and onpremises systems, and ensuring endpoint devices are secured before connecting to the cloud.

Maintaining security in the cloud also includes securing access to cloud data through a variety of gateways, including smartphones and tablets (especially if these are not managed by an organization) and public Wi-Fi (which may be exposed to spoofing attacks). The best way to secure these systems is to deploy a virtual private network that connects to the cloud.

Another common threat is distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, which use bots to attack and take down a cloud service by saturating it with traffic, often through a compromised web server. The attack can then be used to steal sensitive data, or to spread malware and ransomware through the affected site.

A final concern is the potential for one tenant’s vulnerabilities to impact those of other tenants. Fortunately, most CSPs now understand this risk and incorporate features into their services to prevent this from happening. These features often take the form of enhanced boundaries that ensure their own employees cannot view customers’ data, as well as procedures and technology to prevent this.

Organizations looking for deep visibility into cloud infrastructure and entitlement risks should consider a centralized security information and event management (CIEM) solution, which can automatically detect and remediate vulnerabilities in an organization’s cloud configuration. These solutions can also assist with compliance, providing the visibility necessary to comply with industry standards and reduce the risk of configuration errors that can lead to breaches.