Strong cloud security and compliance in your architecture framework is crucial, as data threats and breaches have become a culture in this digital world. Organizations are adopting cloud solutions for flexibility, scalability, and efficiency.

Cloud computing presents a complex landscape of regulatory systems and compliance issues as it continues to transform the way businesses operate.

According to IBM, 45% of breaches are cloud-based. Businesses must ensure their cloud systems comply with various legal and regulatory guidelines, safeguard private information, and maintain robust security policies.

The rate of cybersecurity breaches is reaching alarming levels, leaving no business untouched. In fact, reports suggest that the cost of data breaches in 2024 was approximately $4.88 million, a 10% increase from the previous year.

This article examines the intricacies of cloud governance and compliance, offering insights into navigating legal frameworks and leveraging essential cloud compliance tools.

Table of Contents:

What is Cloud Security and Compliance?

Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) environments face cloud-related challenges like all other IT systems.

Such statistics reflect the growing need for companies to prioritize compliance and security across various cloud applications.

Cloud security and compliance revolve around the policies, processes, regulations, and tools that monitor an organization’s management of its cloud environment.

It ensures that all resources and operations are according to corporate objectives, security protocols, and compliance standards. A well-structured cloud governance framework helps businesses minimize risks, monitor resources, and enhance their operational efficiency.

Common Cloud Compliance Requirements

Several regulations provide standards and best practices for secure data handling in the cloud, guiding cloud compliance initiatives. Some of the common cloud computing frameworks include:

1. General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

GDPR unites and reinforces data protection laws under the European Economic Area (EEA). It is relevant to organizations globally when they deal with EEA personal data. Penalties for noncompliance may be substantial, making adherence indispensable for ensuring data security and privacy.

2. FedRAMP, the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program

FedRAMP facilitates the US government’s standardization of security assessment, approval, and ongoing oversight of cloud services. For cloud service providers to satisfy the stringent regulations established by government authorities, this must be followed.

3. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)

HIPAA requires any U.S. organization to handle sensitive patient data to protect it. Clinics, hospitals, insurance companies, and their representatives are all covered by this. Respecting HIPAA when it comes to cloud computing will prevent unauthorized individuals from accessing patient data.

4. ISO 27000 Series

This series comprises standards providing guidelines on information security management, including cloud-specific controls. Although it is not mandatory, complying with ISO 27000 enhances confidence, reduces risks, and facilitates compliance with other data protection laws.

5. Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS)

PCI DSS determines security requirements for organizations that process card payments. In the cloud, compliance entails specific measures that safeguard dynamic and scalable structures against unauthorized access.

What are the Main Cloud Security and Compliance Challenges?

The partnership between CISOs and CIOs is crucial in effectively managing the intricate realm of cloud security and compliance. Below are a few of the typical difficulties they tackle as a team:

1. Data Breaches and Vulnerabilities

They safeguard data from breaches using effective cloud security measures. Continuous surveillance and sophisticated threat detection systems pinpoint vulnerabilities quickly.

A report from Check Point in 2023 noted a 48% increase in cloud security attacks compared to the year before, underscoring the significance of advanced threat detection and monitoring.

2. Regulatory Compliance

CISOs and CIOs ensure cloud services comply with various regulations such as GDPR, HIPAA, or PCI-DSS. They maintain compliance through regular audits and by adapting policies as regulations evolve.

3. Access Management

Collaboratively, they develop comprehensive identity and access management (IAM) strategies to regulate access to cloud resources. Multi-factor authentication and least-privilege access policies are widely used approaches to enhance security.

4. Shared Security Model

They explain the shared responsibility model with cloud providers to establish distinct security duties. Frequent examination of contracts and service level agreements (SLAs) with providers guarantees that security standards are upheld.

By combining their knowledge, CISOs and CIOs successfully mitigate risks associated with cloud computing, establish robust security measures, and meet compliance requirements to protect the organization’s cloud systems.

The Significance of Cloud Security and Compliance

Data is the lifeblood of modern businesses. That is why even a single security breach can have devastating consequences, including the exposure of sensitive information and disruption of critical operations.

A recent IBM report highlights the vulnerability of cloud data. In 2023, a staggering 82% of data breaches occurred on cloud platforms. This raises the question: Are you investing enough in cloud application security?

If not, your valuable data could be at risk.

The good news is that there are well-established cloud security best practices you can implement to safeguard your valuable data in the cloud.

Read on to explore essential cloud security standards and guidelines to leverage its potential while minimizing security risk.

Step 1: Understanding Cloud Usage and Risk

A foundational understanding of your current cloud usage and associated threats enables you to implement targeted cloud security solutions and mitigate vulnerabilities. These are the elements of a comprehensive cloud security and compliance assessment:

Start by pinpointing sensitive or regulated data within your cloud storage. The loss or theft of intellectual property, financial records, or personally identifiable information (PII) of consumers or employees can have serious consequences, including regulatory fines and reputational damage.

Even if sensitive data resides securely in the cloud, it is vital to monitor how it is accessed and shared. Assess current user permissions on files and folders within your cloud environment.

This includes analyzing access context, such as user roles, location, and device type. Understanding cloud access control patterns enables the identification of potential anomalies and prevents unauthorized access.

This security solution controls access to cloud resources based on preset user roles. A marketing team, for example, may be able to edit cloud-stored marketing materials, while the finance department may have access to financial information.

RBAC ensures that only authorized personnel have access to cloud resources, effectively safeguarding sensitive areas within the cloud environment.

Unsanctioned cloud use, often referred to as “shadow IT,” poses a significant security risk. Employees may inadvertently sign up for cloud storage services or use online document conversion tools without informing IT.

Utilize tools like web proxies, firewalls, or Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) logs to uncover unauthorized cloud services within your organization. Once identified, assess their risk profiles to determine necessary mitigation strategies.

Cloud application services offer convenient access from any internet-connected device. However, allowing downloads to unmanaged devices like personal phones can create security vulnerabilities.

Implementing device security verification protocols mitigates this risk. These protocols require users to verify the security posture of their devices before downloading data from the cloud environment.

Careless employees and external attackers can exhibit behavior that indicates malicious intent toward your cloud data. Implement User Behavior Analytics to monitor for anomalies within user activity to mitigate internal and external data loss attempts.

Control the sharing of sensitive information externally by restricting the use of publicly shared links or implementing stricter approval workflows for external data distribution.

Step 2: Applying Encryption Strategies

To develop a multi-layered defense system for your cloud data, you need to implement significant encryption processes. However, for that, you need to have a clear understanding of how you use the cloud and potential risks.

An essential part of this plan is encryption, which guarantees the security of your private information in the cloud for the duration of its existence.

  • Data at Rest: Encrypting sensitive data at rest within your cloud storage ensures that even if a security breach occurs, the data remains unreadable without the proper decryption keys. Cloud service providers often offer encryption solutions, but consider encrypting data using your keys for maximum control.
  • Data in Transit: Data is vulnerable during transit between your on-premise systems and the cloud. Therefore, secure communication protocols such as HTTPS, SSL/TLS, or VPNs can encrypt data transfers and prevent unauthorized access during transmission.
  • Data in Use: Data can be particularly susceptible when actively processed within the cloud environment. So, implementing Identity and Access Management or role-based access controls can limit access to just authorized users. This technique, known as client-side encryption, reduces the risk of unauthorized access while data is in use.

Step 3: Patching Systems and Addressing Security Incidents

Even with robust security measures in place, ongoing vigilance is essential for maintaining a secure cloud environment.

Regular software upgrades are essential for combating security issues. These include operating systems, applications, browsers, and anti-virus software. Establish a procedure for searching for and applying available fixes. Whenever possible, enable automatic updates to ensure continued protection against new threats.

Utilize anti-malware scanning in your cloud storage solutions to detect and eliminate any malicious software that may have infiltrated shared folders or files. This preemptive technique can help avoid ransomware attacks and data theft efforts

Step 4: Continuous Monitoring and Threat Detection

Mentioned below are cloud security best practices for ongoing monitoring and threat detection:

Cloud applications are complex ecosystems. Utilizing Intrusion Detection and Prevention Systems (IDPS) that tirelessly scan your cloud resources for vulnerabilities, potential threats, and unusual activity. IDPS can neutralize threats by identifying suspicious activity, thereby protecting your applications.

Effective security relies heavily on log data. Implementing robust logging and log analysis mechanisms within your cloud environment provides valuable insights into user activity, system behavior, and potential security gaps.

Regular penetration testing is essential for promptly detecting security flaws. These tests simulate real-world hacking scenarios conducted by ethical hackers who aim to exploit flaws in your cloud applications. Thus, it is essential to pinpoint these vulnerabilities to facilitate remediation efforts and bolster your cloud security and compliance posture.

Top 8 Cloud Security and Compliance Best Practices

Here, we are discussing the top 8 cloud security and compliance best practices that allow you to strengthen your organization’s risk management strategy:

1. Access Control Management

While the cloud platform you choose can offer the right tools, it is up to you and your organization to establish the appropriate access controls to ensure data security. For instance, in cases of insider theft or social engineering, the only thing that can help ensure data safety is the implementation of the right access control policies.

It is essential, therefore, that no one gains access to the data stored in your cloud without proper clearance. The key here is to manage access control policies strictly, which allows you to restrict the users attempting to enter your cloud environment.

The best approach is to align access control settings with each employee’s job function, ensuring they perform their role efficiently and leaving no scope for data misuse. Another way to improve access control management is by assigning specific rights and access policies to different users, adhering to the principle of least privilege. This will help you ensure that the access rights for your high-level security administrators and low-level cloud users remain separate and easily manageable.

2. Consistent and Rigorous Vulnerability Testing

To stay in control of the cloud security and compliance aspect of your cloud environment, it is crucial for your organization to maintain ongoing visibility into all of your cloud technology assets and services.

This can be done by constantly monitoring user activity by setting alerts to get an understanding and real-time information about the usage of your cloud infrastructure.

Further, to make sure that all the latest industry-leading vulnerability and incident response tools are properly implemented, stringent vulnerability testing and security to identify vulnerabilities and risks should be conducted by the enterprises on an ongoing basis, in fact it should be part of the SDLC process.

Not only will it offer a detailed insight into the loopholes and system gaps, but an automated security assessment will also be helpful in designing better solutions. This will be a great way to strengthen the overall security environment and minimize vulnerability.

3. Data Encryption

Encryption of data holds great importance when it comes to cybersecurity. To fortify your cloud infrastructure security, you need to encrypt all data, regardless of its nature or type, that your enterprise generates. The encrypted data in cloud infrastructure protects you from online cyberattacks and helps you substantially minimize instances of data security breaches. Encryption of data should be done during transit and at rest.

  • Encryption in Transit: All data traffic should be encrypted using Transport Layer Security (TLS 1.2) with an industry-standard AES-256 Cipher.
  • Encryption at Rest: It is recommended, however, not to rely on cloud service encryption, as it gives the cloud service provider access to your encryption keys. To be able to fully control access, it is advisable to use your keys with a centralized encryption key management server to deploy stringent encryption solutions before uploading data to the cloud.

The focus here should be on implementing comprehensive data security solutions that enable you to locate any sensitive or confidential information within the company’s network, endpoints, databases, and cloud storage units.

4. Offer Employee Training on Cloud Security and Compliance Practices

Many times, the security threat to your cloud technologies isn’t from outside sources but from your organization and its employees.

To prevent this, conduct regular employee training to ensure that any misuse, whether due to a lack of knowledge or negligence, can be avoided. Training internal staff on best security practices related to cloud environments can help prevent internal security threats.

5. Establish Robust Cloud Data Deletion Policies

Whether you have plans to migrate to a new cloud infrastructure or move back to an on-premise architecture, managing your old clients’ data should be your topmost priority. After a client’s data retention period (as specified in the contract) has ended, that particular client’s data should be programmatically deleted.

Organizations must establish robust data deletion policies to safely and securely remove data from their systems while maintaining strict compliance.

6. Machine Learning for Threat Prevention

An increasing number of organizations are utilizing machine learning technology to identify suspicious behavior and detect threats to their cloud infrastructure.

Machine learning algorithms can help boost your cloud security and compliance in many ways. For instance, it is equipped to detect if any of your confidential data is being repeatedly downloaded and alert you to monitor such patterns.

It is essential to note, however, that machine learning techniques should be utilized in conjunction with other security technologies to ensure that your cloud data remains protected at all times and that your cloud security and compliance are not compromised.

7. Pay Extra Attention to Multi-Cloud Environments

Managing security in a multi-cloud environment is especially tricky, as the data resides on different platforms in this case. To ensure robust safety in such instances, organizations need to devise specific policies based on the data itself rather than the cloud platform where it resides.

8. Strong Password Management

Lastly, it is essential to follow a strong password management policy with measures including:

  • Configuration of a minimum password length
  • Resetting of local admin passwords every 90 or 180 days
  • Configuration of specific settings for password complexity
  • Enabling password auditing to track all password changes
  • Synchronizing passwords using an enterprise password management system that enables you to maintain consistency across security systems

Furthermore, ensure that both your organization and cloud computing vendor provide continuous security monitoring for all systems and environments.

Well-Architected Cloud Compliance Frameworks

Cloud providers such as AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure have developed detailed cloud architecture frameworks to guide organizations to structure their cloud environments properly. These three frameworks are organized around six key pillars:

  • Operational Excellence
  • Security
  • Reliability
  • Performance Efficiency
  • Cost Optimization
  • Sustainability

1. AWS Well-Architected Framework

The AWS Well-Architected Framework helps build secure, high-performance applications on the Amazon Cloud. The objective is to build a cloud infrastructure that is resilient, secure, and adaptable to the business’s needs.

2. Google Cloud Architected Framework

The Google Cloud Architecture Framework is focused on helping cloud architects build reliable, secure, and efficient systems in Google Cloud. This framework enables organizations to utilize cloud governance tools to develop efficient, cost-effective, and secure systems.

3. Azure Well-Architected Framework

The Azure Architecture Framework comprises best practices from Microsoft for optimizing workloads, reliability, and data protection within the Azure cloud platform. This framework enables businesses to design cloud solutions that will help scale up, stay secure, and be efficient.

Lessons From Recent High-Profile Breaches

Below are three of the most critical cloud system loopholes and problems that have led to data breaches:

1. Cloud Misconfiguration

Did you know that in 2023, 80% of the data breaches were on data stored in the cloud?

Clouds are an attractive target for breaches and lucrative for hackers as well. This is because about 60% of the world’s data can be found on the cloud.

Since the concept of clouds is relatively new and companies are still in the process of transitioning, cases of misconfiguration can easily create vulnerabilities for hackers to exploit.

2. Ransomware Attacks

Ransomware attacks have evolved and become craftier. Hackers now not only encrypt the data on the company’s database but also make copies of the sensitive files to release them to the public if a ransom is not paid.

Ransomware attacks rely on the ignorance of cloud users. Total reliance on firewalls, multifactor authentication, etc., is not enough to keep hackers from breaching your cloud database. There needs to be a countermeasure to prevent data exfiltration from company systems.

3. Vendor System Exploitation

Every company needs vendors to assist with day-to-day operations, such as providing office supplies and appliance maintenance. Hackers often get inside company systems by taking over vendor systems and permissions, leading to the company database. A common name for this attack is a Supply Chain Attack.

In 2023, MOVEit acknowledged that such an attack had compromised over 2,600 companies in more than 30 countries, affecting the data of approximately 80 million individuals. 98% of the organizations have been found to be related to vendors whose systems have been compromised in the past two years.

Final Words

Managing the complex terrain of governance and compliance in the cloud requires a holistic approach that encompasses cloud governance, cloud risk management, and compliance with cloud standards. Organizations can protect their data, meet legal requirements, and achieve operational efficiency by creating and implementing effective cloud governance plans.

At Hurix Digital, we place a high priority on developing accessible online platforms because we believe that ensuring inclusive digital experiences is a shared duty. Our professionals are skilled in integrating cloud-managed services to enhance web accessibility and ensure a seamless user experience.

Contact us today to see how the cloud can benefit your business operations!