Cloud Security Essentials
Cloud Security is a broad category of cybersecurity solutions that are designed specifically for the cloud. Depending on your deployment model and the types of applications you use, cloud security can include firewall protection that regulates incoming and outgoing data based on policies, encryption to encrypt data so attackers can’t read it and prevent unauthorized access, identity and access management (IAM) tools for controlling user permissions to shared resources, cloud infrastructure entitlement management to oversee responsibilities in shared environments, and data loss prevention tools to monitor and protect sensitive data from exfiltration.
Choosing a secure cloud provider.
While backend development against security vulnerabilities lies mostly in the hands of the cloud service providers, clients are tasked with securing everything that gets stacked on top of those core services, including data, runtimes, middleware and the OS itself. Clients must also ensure they’re properly securing all end-user hardware and networks.
Keeping a Zero Trust environment.
A Zero Trust approach is critical for protecting data in the cloud because it enforces strict standards around a network’s trustworthiness – whether it’s on premise or in the cloud. It’s best practice to encrypt all data before uploading to the cloud, and to use a provider that offers end-to-end encryption as part of the service. It’s also important to limit the number of privileged accounts that have access to your cloud environment, and to implement IAM tools for managing user identities, roles, privileges and policies.