In the current generation, the cloud has been a crucial ingredient for most worldwide enterprises, small and medium-sized businesses, among more. Cloud computing is one of the significant computing areas that have seen the computing sector grow by a bigger deal. Therefore every industry, company, and institution looks forward to gaining the best out of technology. However essential it is, it comes with some of the challenges that need solutions. Some of the fundamental reasons behind the massive cloud usage by companies and SMBs are the flexibility and the extend it offers.

Research has shown that most companies and businesses relying on the cloud have an extra 26% growth rate whose profit hits a 21% rate. Thus, for this reason, most companies venture into the cloud with their increased desire for scalability, flexibility, agility, and, more importantly, resilience. In this post, we will zero down on the essential cloud security areas along with its frameworks. But before going deeper, let us understand the basics of cloud computing.

Basics of cloud computing

The cloud in the computing content refers to computing services provided on-demand over the internet. There are various cloud versions – a cloud can be private, public, or hybrid. A private cloud is exclusively under single ownership and is hosted on-site or at a third party. A public cloud is that under the license and operation of a third party. A hybrid one permits data and apps to move between the two to enhance flexibility. The cloud services subdivide into Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS).

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The past 12 months have seen a busier business sector transiting to the cloud with more expectations of successful businesses. It, therefore, depicts the vitality of cloud services not only in companies. You’d be sure the cloud services span through different expansive dimensions. Even as a shift between physical businesses and cloud platforms occurs, it is essential to note that the transitions do not emerge fully. Why would the changes occur partly? It raises questions of concern. A partial change of workloads into the cloud would mean mistrust of partial dependency on the cloud for security purposes.

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Common cloud security challenges

Data breaches and cyber-attacks are potential hot posts as long as anyone thinks of computer security. Computing security looks forward to ensuring more concern for access control, visibility, and misconfigurations. In detail, we shall narrow down and explore each specific cloud security challenge with possible ways to counter the challenges. It is then that you’ll migrate into the cloud confident enough. Let’s first delve into challenges from the cloud provider’s side.

• Access to Cloud Data and Applications

Infrastructural control differs from organization to organization over the public cloud. With the availability of a wide range of Infrastructure over the internet, it is essential to employ crucial strategies to ensure proper access control. However, access control sometimes becomes a challenge, thus posing a threat for those relying on the cloud. The problem can be a pain in the neck for cloud service providers. Therefore, some standard solid solutions for the same include using cloud based two factor authentication or a multifactor one. It should entail the generation of keys or tokens that are strictly special to each cloud user. Strict access control is also a possible remedy where only users with permission can access their desired data.

• Vendor Lock-In for Security Features

Vendor Lock-In is a great fear that will always overrun business expectations as most of them are prone to switching costs or features, with most cloud service providers employing the pay-as-you-go strategy with stricter options for shutting down. Therefore, a better solution to lock-ins is to consider a multi-cloud approach which tends to reduce them.

• Compliance and Regulations

Every business, regardless of size, has an eye open on the rapidly changing industry, standards, data privacy frameworks, global regulations, even they rely on the cloud. It thus poses a more significant challenge for those businesses which would wish to rely on the cloud generally. There are always strict standards that may arise to ensure data is stored, acceded, share, or modified appropriately by the proper organization. Every provides must rely entirely upon the rigorous standards imposed.

• Cloud-Native Breaches

Another common cloud security concern is the cloud-native breach. Such a breach always looks forward to expanding and compromise sensitive data, thus leveraging the cloud laterally. Vulnerable hot points include misconfiguration and visibility.

Organizational Challenges

• Insider Threats

There is always a great chance that an insider can accidentally or maliciously tamper with or compromise data through unauthorized access. Mitigating these threats calls for proper access control strategies, including insider threat protection. Some access control strategies include providing limits to the system and data access so that they are only available to those who need them. More robust authentication strategies also prove to be productive. It is also crucial to consider employee pieces of training to avoid simple mistakes that could bring about a terrible threat to security.

• Insecure Application and Configurations

Security reports and statistics depict that almost 100% of IaaS misconfigurations go unnoticed and provide a common loophole for cloud-native breaches. It is therefore essential to prepare for such a challenge through cloud-native tools crucial for data loss prevention. Such tools help in auditing configurations for assurance of data protection against security breaches.

• Inadequate Personnel Experienced in Cloud Security Measures

The current statistics depict that there is talent scarcity, especially in the IT sector. Furthermore, it becomes worse with the increasing talent scarcity that shot up to triple the number before. Therefore, it sends employers to struggle to point out the right personnel to handle most security-related issues over the cloud. A crucial way of countering such a challenge is outsourcing which can quickly help employers establish the best people with extraordinary skills and services. Or, you can use cloud security software to secure your data.

External Challenges

• DDoS and Denial of Service (DoS) Attacks

DoS and Distributed Denial of Service attacks render the cloud’s usage useless. It ensures that services provided by the cloud are unavailable. Countering DDoS and DoS calls for rate limiting, firewalls, blackhole routing, and IP blocking services.

• Account Hijacking

Most of the current security-related issues on the cloud relate to accounting hijacking. Surprisingly, the rate of growth of this challenge is directly proportional to the increase in the number of cloud services. Proper solutions to such threats require that cloud users understand social engineering schemes, phishing, and other credential-based threats. Avoidance of the threat calls for authentication – either tw0-factor or multifactor authentication.

• API Attacks

Attacks on APIs provide a way to gain leverage on data and web applications. Therefore, it raises concern about overlooking API security testing, especially at the application testing phase. According to recent surveys and statistics, many individuals have fallen victims to APIs attacks in recent years. Countering API attacks calls for the implementation of reliable access controls and encryption.

Conclusion

With a proper understanding of the working of the cloud, it is possible to make cloud security stronger than ever before. Most of the challenges on the cloud occur because of the lack of knowledge of how everything works. Therefore, every party relying on the cloud must stay atop the security trends and issues that relate to the cloud. It is everyone’s role, regardless of the need to ensure security as a cloud-first strategy.

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