Have you ever wondered why businesses have made significant investments in cloud security? Though the cloud offers scalability and convenience, managing sensitive data in this environment offers unique challenges. Many businesses make typical mistakes that risk their sensitive data as they quickly adopt cloud technologies.
According to a 2022 survey, 81% of security experts at large enterprises said that they have experienced a cloud security incident in the past year. Additionally, more than half of those believed cloud security risks are greater than those associated with on-premise IT security (Townsend, 2022). Most frequent cloud security mistakes are responsible for a large number of cloud data breaches and attacks. This article helps you to know the detailed information about the top 5 common mistakes that weaken cloud security and how to avoid/prevent them.
Top 5 Common Mistakes That Weaken Cloud Security and How to Avoid Them:
In recent years, news headlines have displayed about the companies that ignored cloud security and suffered with significant financial, legal, and reputational harm. A devastating cloud data leak might arise from even the simplest mistake. For instance, the cybersecurity risk management company UpGuard discovered in October 2017 that Accenture is a consulting and management company that had left at least four cloud storage buckets in AWS unsecured, leaving them accessible to anyone with the address (UpGuard, 2017).
The impacted individuals were extorted using the passwords, software configuration data, and API access keys that were leaked onto the Dark Web. The good news is that boosting your cyber defenses involves being aware of potential threats to cloud security. You can begin to take precautions once you are aware of the common cloud security mistakes that businesses make.
1. Misconfigurations:
Cloud security may suffer greatly from configuration mistakes that happen during the deployment, management, and setup of cloud resources. According to the National Security Agency (NSA) cloud misconfigurations are “the most prevalent cloud vulnerability,” (National Security Agency, 2020). They can end up in denial of service vulnerability or compromised accounts, among other issues.
Hundreds or thousands of software programs, hardware components, and other IT assets may be identified in cloud environments. Users can easily misconfigure resources like a storage bucket, security group, or firewall because of the huge attack surface. Attackers can then enter or spread the environment throughout it by taking advantage of this vulnerability.
If you want to keep misconfigurations from turning into cloud security threats, your company needs to set up appropriate change management and monitoring processes. This includes regularly checking and updating security settings, testing and auditing security settings for accuracy, reviewing and upgrading access controls.
2. Lack of Proper Credential Management:
Inadequate credential management is another major contributor to cloud security issues. For example, passwords may be shared by several people, too weak, or simple to find out. If unauthorized people are able to get access, even more advanced methods that depend on digital credentials like tokens and secrets may not work.
To avoid credential management issues, organizations should create strong password policies which make these passcodes tough to figure out. The best course of action is to safeguard secrets and security tokens with strong access controls and keep credentials in a secure password manager. Use MFA (multi-factor authentication) whenever possible, which asks users to verify their login credentials through another method like text, email, or mobile app.
3. Over-Permissioned Cloud Resources:
Too many permissions might also be present in cloud resources. Sometimes this occurs accidentally, like when you use the default security settings without considering the repercussions or customizing them to a particular cloud environment. For instance, a cloud-based container may receive host permissions, which would allow it to access resources on the computer that should be off-limits.
A cybersecurity approach known as “least privilege” may assist you to avoid over-permission cloud resources (Gegick & Barnum, 2013). According to this approach, roles and users are only given the access permissions specifically required for their positions. By using the concept of least privilege, attackers will be restricted in their ability to cause harm if they succeed to hack into a user’s account or steal its credentials.
4. Insecure API’s:
Application programming interfaces, or APIs, are extremely useful for cloud computing because they allow information to be exchanged between various cloud systems and services. However, an API may become a vector for a cyberattack if it is not secure enough. For example, hackers could exploit unwanted access to data and resources by taking advantage of the flaws in an insecure API.
To secure an API, set up appropriate authorization and authentication measures. Using HTTPS and secure protocols like OAuth and OpenID Connect are the examples of API best practices. Monitoring API-based cloud security breaches is also assisted by having a look for odd activity on APIs.
5. Poor Security Practices:
In addition to the above challenges, businesses may be exposed to several poor cloud security practices. System administrators might neglect to update software or make the necessary changes for security parameters. Users may also unintentionally expose data in cloud storage or handle personal and sensitive information in methods that are against rules like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).
To improve their cloud security practices, organizations should create and implement a comprehensive strategy that all users must adhere to. Education and training programs, security evaluations, and strategies for handling and preventing safety issues are a few examples for the document contents.
The above mentioned are the five common mistakes that weaken cloud security but there are also few other mistakes that may weaken cloud security.
Conclusion:
I hope this article helps you to know the mistakes that weaken cloud security and how to avoid them. For companies of all sizes and industries, cloud computing has emerged as an IT best practice that provides increased flexibility and reliability at a lower cost. For numerous business decision-makers, cloud security is still a major concern. By avoiding the mistakes you can prevent the cloud security from weakening.