What Is Cloud Application Security
Common threats cloud application security should counter are code injections, supply chain attacks, session hijacking, ensuring uptime, protecting users, and data theft. The security of an Application is ensured by deploying several security measures and tools to protect applications in the software life cycle right from design, testing, deployment, and so on. Cloud application security is different from securing on-premises applications, coming with challenges beyond that of traditional application security. Cloud environments are well distributed and the cloud provider normally maintains and secures the underlying infrastructure. In fact, cloud environments are well distributed and shared by nature, and cloud provider normally maintains and secure the underlying infrastructure. Security challenges for teams developing and operating cloud-native applications will include access and authorization across multiple devices and users, misconfiguration of cloud resources, securing previously unsecured cloud data in transit, and more. Cloud Application Security: Importance and Benefits Cloud application security is significant because it protects sensitive data and applications from cyber threats that could lead to breaches, loss of data, and other negative consequences. With the fact that more and more organizations are moving their data and applications to the cloud, such assets must be secured. The benefits of cloud application security include: Cloud app security solutions provide better insights into organizations’ cloud environments and how their security risks are being projected. 9 Cloud Application Security Threats Some of the key threats to cloud-based applications are as follows: What Cloud Application Security Options Are Available? Here are some of the cloud application security options available: 1. Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB) The disadvantage of going for the cloud services option is that you cannot have access to all infrastructure layers. You, therefore are not privileged to see or get control of all your assets at any time. A software component CASB that operates as an enforcer solves this problem. CASBs position themselves between the infrastructure of a cloud vendor and a cloud consumer and enforce access and data permission policies. You can install CASBs either in the cloud or on-premises or even both while enforcing multiple types of policies. For instance, you can enforce security policies including authorization and authentication, encryption and tokenization, logging and credential mapping as well as malware detection and prevention. 2. Cloud Workload Protection Platform (CWPP) Most organizations use at least some cloud resources and often use a mix of on-premises and cloud resources. But most organizations are also avoiding vendor lock-in and managing costs by using more than one cloud offering, ending up in hybrid or multi-cloud environments. Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPPs) allow complex cloud environments to be better protected through consistent security and management of workloads across clouds. These tools typically centralize management and define security policies, maintain visibility across environments, and may include extended security controls. Capabilities that are commonly provided by CWPP systems include system integrity monitoring, vulnerability management, system hardening, and host-based segmentation. 3. Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) Organizations need to have consolidated visibility and be able to enforce consistent security and compliance controls to protect multi-cloud Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) environments, especially cloud-hosted Kubernetes for containerized applications. CSPM solutions help organizations by scanning the cloud configuration settings and access controls and continuously monitoring these settings and controls for cloud security risks. A CSPM can track, monitor, and log cloud-related problems like cloud service configurations, security settings, compliance, and cloud governance. Moreover, capabilities include monitoring and analytics, inventory and asset classification, cost management, and resource organization. 4. Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management CIEM A new category, CIEM was announced by Gartner on the 2020 Cloud Security Hype Cycle. CIEM solutions support the implementation, enforcement of, and best practices for identity and access management tools from providers across cloud providers, a system that is becoming increasingly complex and dynamic. CIEM solutions offer organizations identity and access governance controls, which are created to reduce excessive cloud infrastructure entitlement and enforce least privilege access controls. They also can streamline controls for least-privileged access implemented across dynamic and distributed cloud environments. Cloud Application Security Best Practices 1. Discover and Asses Cloud Apps Every application or workload you are running on the cloud increases its attack surface. It might look like any one of these applications provides an opening point for attackers, so keep track of each and every one of them deployed by your organization. Once you have a list of cloud applications, assess them by identifying their security features and known vulnerabilities, comparing them to compliance requirements and your security policies, and prioritizing and remediating issues. Repeat this process for new applications deployed in the cloud. 2. Implement and Benchmark a Cloud Security Framework Cloud security frameworks give organizations an understanding of best practices and practical suggestions that would guide organizations as they strive to deal with security risks in the cloud. For instance, The Center for Internet Security delivers security benchmarks that come along with detailed best practices by most major cloud providers like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, IBM Cloud, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, and Alibaba Cloud. 3. Cloud Security Architecture You can design a cloud security architecture that outlines your security configurations, policies, and privileges to ensure that your infrastructure is secure. Ideally, this design should be done before migrating to the cloud, and it should encompass all aspects, including development, operations, deployment, and upgrades. Your cloud security architecture should cover several major aspects of the infrastructure, namely identity and access management, data protection, monitoring and visibility, threat detection, cloud governance, compliance with the relevant regulations, and security measures placed for the physical components of the infrastructure. Robust Cloud Application Security with Qualysec If your business uses cloud-based applications, the idea of a cloud app security program should already top your head. Whether your group just recently started protecting cloud data and applications or has an existing strategy for cloud app security, knowing that your information is safely protected is of utmost importance to building a secure working environment. Such solutions are a great start at leveraging the
