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Cloud security definition

Cloud security is a discipline of cybersecurity focused on the protection of cloud computing systems. It involves a collection of technologies, policies, services, and security controls that protect an organizations sensitive data, applications, and environments.

Cloud computing, commonly referred to as the cloud, is the delivery of hosted services like storage, servers, and software through the internet. Cloud computing allows businesses to reduce costs, accelerate deployments, and develop at scale.

Cloud security goals:

Fortify the security posture of your cloud platforms and respond with authority to cloud data breaches.Cloud Security Services

As companies continue to transition to a fully digital environment, the use of cloud computing has become increasingly popular. But cloud computing comes with cybersecurity challenges, which is why understanding the importance of cloud security is essential in keeping your organization safe.

Over the years, security threats have become incredibly complex, and every year, new adversaries threaten the field. In the cloud, all components can be accessed remotely 24/7, so not having a proper security strategy puts gathered data in danger all at once. According to the CrowdStrike 2024 Global Threat Report, cloud environment intrusions increased by 75% from 2022 to 2023, with a 110% year-over-year increase in cloud-conscious cases and a 60% year-over-year increase in cloud-agnostic cases. Additionally, the report revealed that the average breakout time for interactive eCrime intrusion activity in 2023 was 62 minutes, with one adversary breaking out in just 2 minutes and 7 seconds.

Cloud security should be an integral part of an organizations cybersecurity strategy regardless of their size. Many believe that only enterprise-sized companies are victims of cyberattacks, but small and medium-sized businesses are some of the biggest targets for threat actors. Organizations that do not invest in cloud security face immense issues that include potentially suffering from a data breach and not staying compliant when managing sensitive customer data.

Download this new report to learn about the most prevalent cloud security risks and threats from 2023 to better protect from them in 2024.

An effective cloud security strategy employs multiple policies and technologies to protect data and applications in cloud environments from every attack surface. Some of these technologies include identity and access management (IAM) tools, firewall management tools, and cloud security posture management tools, among others.

Organizations also have the option to deploy their cloud infrastructures using different models, which come with their own sets of pros and cons.

The four available cloud deployment models are:

This type of model is the most affordable, but it is also associated with the greatest risk because a breach in one account puts all other accounts at risk.

The benefit of this deployment model is the level of control it provides individual organizations. Additionally, it provides enhanced security and ensures compliance, making it the most leveraged model by organizations that handle sensitive information. However, it is expensive to use.

The biggest benefit from this deployment model is the flexibility and performance it offers.

Most organizations use a third-party CSP such as Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Microsoft Azure to host their data and applications. Strong cloud security involves shared responsibility between these CSPs and their customers.

It is important not to rely only on security measures set by your CSP you should also implement security measures within your organization. Though a solid CSP should have strong security to protect from attackers on their end, if there are security misconfigurations, privileged access exploitations, or some form of human error within your organization, attackers can potentially move laterally from an endpoint into your cloud workload. To avoid issues, it is essential to foster a security-first culture by implementing comprehensive security training programs to keep employees aware of cybersecurity best practices, common ways attackers exploit users, and any changes in company policy.

The shared responsibility model outlines the security responsibilities of cloud providers and customers based on each type of cloud service: software as a service (SaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), and infrastructure as a service (IaaS).

This table breaks down the shared responsibility by cloud service model:

Misconfigurations, workloads and data

Endpoints, user and network security, and workloads

Endpoints, user and network security, workloads, and data

The dynamic nature of cloud security opens up the market to multiple types of cloud security solutions, which are considered pillars of a cloud security strategy. These core technologies include:

It is essential to have a cloud security strategy in place. Whether your cloud provider has built-in security measures or you partner with the top cloud security providers in the industry, you can gain numerous benefits from cloud security. However, if you do not employ or maintain it correctly, it can pose challenges.

The most common benefits include:

Unlike traditional on-premises infrastructures, the public cloud has no defined perimeters. The lack of clear boundaries poses several cybersecurity challenges and risks.

Failure to properly secure each of these workloads makes the application and organization more susceptible to breaches, delays app development, compromises production and performance, and puts the brakes on the speed of business.

In addition, organizations using multi-cloud environments tend to rely on the default access controls of their cloud providers, which can become an issue in multi-cloud or hybrid cloud environments. Insider threats can do a great deal of damage with their privileged access, knowledge of where to strike, and ability to hide their tracks.

To address these cloud security risks, threats, and challenges, organizations need a comprehensive cybersecurity strategy designed around vulnerabilities specific to the cloud. Read this post to understand 12 security issues that affect the cloud. Read: 12 cloud security issues

Though cloud environments can be open to vulnerabilities, there are many cloud security best practices you can follow to secure the cloud and prevent attackers from stealing your sensitive data.

Some of the most important practices include:

Why embrace Zero Trust?

The basic premise of the Zero Trust principle in cloud security is to not trust anyone or anything in or outside the organizations network. It ensures the protection of sensitive infrastructure and data in todays world of digital transformation. The principle requires all users to be authenticated, authorized, and validated before they get access to sensitive information, and they can easily be denied access if they dont have the proper permissions.

CrowdStrike has redefined security with the worlds most complete CNAPP that secures everything from code to cloud and enables the people, processes, and technologies that drive modern enterprise.

With a 75% increase in cloud-conscious attacks in the last year, it is essential for your security teams to partner with the right security vendor to protect your cloud, prevent operational disruptions, and protect sensitive information in the cloud. CrowdStrike continuously tracks 230+ adversaries to give you industry-leading intelligence for robust threat detection and response.

The CrowdStrike Falcon platform contains a range of capabilities designed to protect the cloud. CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security stops cloud breaches by consolidating all the critical cloud security capabilities that you need into a single platform for complete visibility and unified protection. Falcon Cloud Security offers cloud workload protection; cloud, application, and data security posture management; CIEM; and container security across multiple environments.

Get a free, no obligation Cloud Security Risk Review for instant and complete visibility into your entire cloud estate, provided through agentless scanning with zero impact to your business.CrowdStrike's cloud security risk review

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What Is Cloud Security? - CrowdStrike