How To Do A Cloud Security Assessment
While 39% of organizations had a cloud data breach the previous year, 75% continued to host more than 40% of sensitive data on the cloud. As a CISO, you are always at the forefront of the battle between hosting data on the cloud and safeguarding data. The cloud is now the basis of the new IT infrastructure, and cutting through the complexity of hosting data is the only way ahead. Here comes cloud security assessment, which helps security experts determine problematic security settings and vulnerabilities and allows them to realize the cloud’s many advantages in their truest sense. Read on to understand the cloud security assessment, how it is carried out, the benefits associated with periodic cloud security assessments, and the associated challenges. What is Cloud Security Assessment? Cloud security assessment is an assessment of the cloud environment that allows for a systemic identification of all risks and vulnerabilities that would impact data resources. It allows organizations to proactively identify security weaknesses and compliance gaps within their cloud-based systems and develop remediation plans. What are the Benefits of Cloud Security Assessment? Cloud security assessments provide visibility across known and unknown vulnerabilities across the cloud landscape. The assessments help initiate data-informed decisions for closing security gaps. These also enable proactive threat detection, configuration management, and compliance checks. All these measures in turn translate into a robust security posture. The following are some of the advantages of cloud security assessment: 1. Reducing risk Cloud security checks utilize various tools and techniques to identify potential security risks that turn into security incidents. All these risks, such as miss-configurations, access management, encryption misses, missing firewall rules, and all other vulnerabilities, are marked for immediate response and at minimum impact. 2. Compliance Management The risk assessment of cloud security helps determine compliance gaps by critically assessing the effectiveness of control of cloud security. Several of these frameworks have multiple mandates regarding cloud security requirements that one should review from time to time. For instance, GDPR offers portability data transfers if they make a request. Cloud security assessment ensures the safe transfer of data into the data subject in cases where the subject requests their data. 3. Better security posturing Cloud risk assessments determine the security capabilities the cloud infrastructure provides such as ensuring appropriate access controls, relevant security patches, endpoint protection, and so on. The regular update of policies helps the firm develop maturity both at a structural and operational level for fighting security threats better. 4. Incident response preparedness Cloud infrastructure security assessments can identify vulnerabilities that attackers can exploit and help prioritize security issues. It can also evaluate the effectiveness of mechanisms like intrusion detection systems that aid in preventing security incidents and enhancing incident response plans. 5. Cost savings The assessments help trim costs across a spectrum of functions. Fewer incidents result in huge cost savings. Keeping compliance in check helps reduce costs that accrue from data breach notifications and regulatory penalties. Finally, timely redressal of misconfigurations and other security concerns helps reduce administrative overheads due to operational efficiencies. How to Perform Cloud Security Assessment? Cloud security risk assessment is assessing the vulnerabilities of the cloud infrastructure for loopholes in security compliance. It’s done by cataloging the resources on the cloud, giving them a deep assessment, and recommending a change on what needs to be updated or changed. With this knowledge, here are the 6 steps for performing cloud security assessment. 1. Discovery of cloud resources A comprehensive list of all the assets that are hosted in the cloud architecture. This includes digital assets like databases, servers, applications, workstations, network devices, and many more. The organization also gathers cloud infrastructure diagrams, configuration information, policies, and more. Don’t forget to include information about third-party vendors that the organization is making use of. It provides a comprehensive view of what assets and resources require protection. 2. Assessment scoping Shortlist the processes, tools, and people involved in the assessment. Narrow the scope by determining what type of data is stored or processed by the cloud application to mark the critical services. These may include business-critical processes like web servers and application servers, cloud services responsible for processing compliance data, any external facing APIs, etc. Finalize the outcomes to be achieved from the cloud assessment framework in the scope statement. 3. Risk detection and vulnerabilities Internal risk scoring, External risk scoring, and Compliance Violations. Find out the criticality of vulnerabilities: Using vulnerability scans and pen-test tools, evaluate access control and permission mechanisms, encryption keys, and Network security including the firewall configuration, and security setup, Adhere to Compliance, and make a risk matrix that would highlight the severity and priority response of the identified risks. It describes the identified gaps in existing solutions toward generating actionable insights from every initiative taken. A high-level summary can be prepared for management review. For security teams, you can have detailed reports along with technical jargon and details. Also, proof of concept, references for findings, and recommendations for remediation should be included. 4. Remediation plan Create a remediation plan with detailed recommendations and actionable steps to be initiated. Define roles and responsibilities along with a stipulated timeline for each task. Ensure that the budget and the tools for corrective action are in place. Ensure security awareness training to provide best practices for cloud security while undertaking corrective action. 5. Monitoring and improvement Determine the key performance indicators that can measure remediation measures. Provide time for a scheduled meeting that can include discussing how many vulnerabilities were resolved and all other essentials. The internal audits will help to check the effectiveness of remediation measures and adjust the plan as needed to maintain constant improvement. Challenges you may face while Performing Cloud Security Assessment Whereas the high-impact exercise of cloud infrastructure assessment benefits the organization in the long run, it brings up a number of specific challenges in security practices. This may be a result of the intricate nature of cloud environments as well as shadow IT. Let’s take a glance at
