Using multiple cloud platforms is increasingly becoming the most preferred environment for businesses around the world. It is due to many liberties that the integration of multi-cloud infrastructures brings forward such as, operational and task distribution across different cloud platforms like Microsoft Azure, IBM Cloud, Amazon web services, and Google cloud platform. It also allows businesses the liberty to strategize their accessibility to wide-ranging services of different cloud platforms to assimilate the best of all into operations. Naturally the multi-cloud architecture has a relatively complex environment and businesses are still getting familiar with the challenges this infrastructure poses.
Among all other concerns, multi-cloud architecture security remains the main issue. Organizations with multi-cloud networks become more vulnerable to cyber threats due to the wide infrastructure that translates into a wider attack field for cybercriminals. This is exactly the reason why security remains at the top of organizations as well as cloud service providers' multi-cloud strategy. Yet, every other day there is an incident of cloud misconfigured files, data breach, or even human error brought to the knowledge of the public. Did you know that human error makes up 27% of all the cyberattacks in the last year? The same year people around the world also paid $2 trillion in the global cost of cybercrimes.
Misconfigured files on cloud not only compromise the organizations but also compromise millions of users whose data gets exposed to further damage. It cannot be stressed enough how significant is the matter of security in a multi-cloud world is. Go through the following few steps to avoid these common errors in your or your organization's multi-cloud infrastructure. And while you are at it, take advantage of many Information security training programs to ensure you don’t add up to the percentile of human error.
Observe cloud service providers
Watching the security practices of your service vendor gives you quite valuable insight about your security. Do not make the mistake that so many other organizations usually do at the time of multi-cloud adoption. Do your research, besides listening to the cloud service providers because it is your research that will help you understand all the relevant aspects of cloud platforms' infrastructure. It is also your keen observation within the time that will inform you about the practices the cloud service providers employ in order to ensure the absolute security of their platforms. Your cloud vendor should provide a number of security services such as software encryption, accessibility management, and multi-factor authentication etc., at the time of deployment and beyond. Another thing you should be watchful about is the location and mechanisms of vendors' operation. It will help you determine the level of security they are capable of providing. For instance, if a certain cloud service is located in a sole data center hub, it is all but one cyberattack away from crashing down.
Ensure employees’ familiarity with the infrastructure of cloud platforms
Granted, integrating new or eliminating former infrastructure within an organization is strictly the domain of executives. But experimenting with technological assimilation without having employees on board or at least the IT department is practically asking for trouble. Your workforce besides the security team should have proper visibility into your cloud environments in order to understand the nature and demands of the newly employed services.
Only if your in-house IT experts are given a chance to explore cloud platforms for understanding the infrastructure, they will understand the vulnerabilities and optimally put together a counter plan. The security teams are usually more than capable of mitigating a certain level of breach attempts in an organization's security. They can also formulate a strategy to establish inclusive protocols about the management and handling of essential software to minimize as many security threats to the system or a particular data as preemptive measures allow.
Implement a centralized approach to multi-cloud security
The data visibility in the multi-cloud environment plays a significant role in enabling the security team to identify potential weaknesses and device robust precautionary strategies. The centralized control allows for not only compatible security but it also facilitates security information in terms of implemented measures and tools to be shared across the board until each contact point on each platform is in the loop. Third-party automation and uniform protocol is the best approach to ensure multi-cloud security.
Consistent updates, communications encryption between multi-cloud applications, control plane security etc., reduces the human error margin considerably. Because if there is one thing cybercriminals patiently look for, its human-caused vulnerabilities and insufficient updates.
Ensure employees’ compliance with security protocol
In relative contrast to the above step, organizations ought to integrate a security protocol to keep unrequired and unwanted people away from critical sites. Your data and software applications are nobody's business and to prevent the usual instances of unrelated individuals having plain accessibility to the organization's confidential data and crucial services you need security protocol in place. For people from within organizations that are not connected with security matters often become the major source of security breaches.
It does not necessarily mean malicious intent but if unrelated people of an organization can be allowed to access sensitive data, they become susceptible to knowingly or unknowingly revealing the critical information to cyberattacks. It is not about barring entrances by blocking doors, instead, it is about ensuring that any new service and software acquired by the organization is completely secured and patched before providing the usability to your employees. Stringent security protocol only successfully works when practicing in coordination with employees that are trained to abide by it which in turn prevents more cyberattacks than you can think.
Conclusion
It all starts, remains, maintains, and ruins from the planning and execution stage of integrating multi-cloud infrastructure. At the time of architectural design, organizations need to ensure absolute security in each and every aspect of the multi-cloud plan. Since this is not an uncomplicated infrastructure, security measures are not limited to the initial stages. It is essential for organizations to incessantly update and integrate need specific tools to meets all different multi-cloud system security requirements.