Security has always been a concern for organizations migrating to the cloud. Although cloud security is continually evolving, all enterprises need to be aware and protect themselves against security threats on-site and in the cloud. Cloud computing transforms how an organization handles data use and storage, shares applications, and manages workloads. Along with introducing many innovations, cloud computing has also been responsible for launching a whole new spectrum of security challenges and threats.
The exponential increase in public cloud usage means that more data and more highly sensitive data is being exposed to higher risk. The most important thing for a company to understand when they migrate to the cloud is that, ultimately, security is the customer’s responsibility or enterprise utilizing the cloud and not the cloud provider. Here are six security threats that are extremely real in today’s technology world.
Insecure Interfaces and APIs
When you migrate to the cloud, you use a set of software user interfaces, UI’s otherwise referred to as API’s to manage and interact with cloud services. Management, provisioning, and monitoring are all functions carried out with these interfaces. Cloud security and the ability to access and use cloud services depend on the protection of the APIs. Every API should have security built to protect against both malicious and accidental attempts to work around security policies and protocols.
System Vulnerabilities
When we talk about system vulnerabilities, we speak about bugs in programs that hackers or attackers can use to infiltrate your system to steal data and take control of your order, causing service disruptions and more. It would help if you understood the vulnerabilities of the components that comprise your operating system and protect against them because those vulnerabilities put all of your services and data at risk. With cloud multi-tenancy, organizations are placed close to one another and given access to share resources and memory. This opens up a whole new plane for attackers to target.
Account Hijacking
Account hijacking has been a long-standing threat, but the danger is escalated with cloud services. Suppose an attacker gains access to a legitimate user’s credentials. In that case, they can manipulate data, create false information, eavesdrop on corporate activities and transactions, and even redirect customers to fake or illegitimate sites. Account and service instances can quickly become new bases for attack and compromise the integrity, availability, and confidentiality of those services.
Data Leaks
Data leaks are often cited as a primary reason a business has not adopted the cloud. The cloud is a multi-user environment where all resources are shared. The cloud is supplied and managed by a third-party service; the potential exists for sensitive data to be at risk of being viewed or mishandled by the provider. In addition to this threat of data leaks, several external threats can lead to data leakages, such as malicious hacks of cloud providers or user accounts being compromised. One solution to user accounts’ problem being compromised is to utilize file encryption and stronger passwords instead of relying on the cloud service provider for security.
Key Management
The introduction of cloud computing magnified security risks concerning managing cryptographic keys. One of the most important things you can do is implement a crucial secure management process from the beginning. The process should be automated and active without being overly conspicuous. Security keys should be jointly-secured. The means to retrieve security keys should be difficult and time-consuming, and tedious to ensure that data can never be accessed without authorization.
Cloud Credentials
One of the most enticing reasons for moving to the cloud is that it offers almost unlimited storage for everyone. The downside is the need to use third parties. This is usually mitigated, at least theoretically, by using restricted access based on user credentials. The problem is that those credentials are also generally stored on the cloud and can vary significantly in security strength based on individual users’ password habits. Poor safety habits often result in certifications being compromised. While a compromised credential may not provide access to the data within your files, it could allow a hacker to perform other tasks such as making copies or deleting them. The only way to overcome this security threat is to encrypt all of your sensitive data and secure your unique credentials. There are secure password management services, and investing in such a program can save a lot of money if your data gets compromised.
Alto9 is a Cloud solutions firm created to help customers migrate to and make the most of Amazon Web Services. Cloud computing is a rapidly changing paradigm that requires a specialized focus, and our Amazon Certified engineers have the depth of experience and know-how to make sure your Cloud infrastructure runs efficiently, securely, and scales with you as your business grows.
