Here are the 3 most overlooked strategies that CISOs could consider using today.
- Adopting Continuous Misconfiguration Monitoring
Misconfigurations are one of the most common causes of cloud data breaches.
The increasing complexity of modern cloud environments continues to increase the risk of misconfigurations.
For most organisations, the core challenge is in coordinating the constant change of regulatory mandates and cybersecurity requirements across multi-cloud environments.
Often this leads to project delays or incomplete solutions (with security gaps).
To add to this, the management overhead of configuration monitoring often overwhelms compliance teams, with 45% of organisations citing a shortage of cloud expertise.
However, with almost 15% of high-profile breaches linked to misconfigurations, organisations are now more aware of the need for cost-effective and continuous misconfiguration monitoring (to lower their exposure to significant vulnerabilities).
- Leveraging Automated Data Segmentation
More than 70% of all cyberattacks involve lateral network exposure.
Data segmentation makes it harder for attackers to move laterally across your network.
Many organisations tend to focus more on securing the perimeter, rather than applying data segmentation (whereby each data segment is administered specific security measures).
Segmentation is often complex to setup and requires ongoing management.
On top of this, cloud environments are designed for scalability — meaning as your infrastructure grows it becomes more difficult to administer the latest security and compliance policies.
Automating the segmentation process via infrastructure-as-code can ensure that segmentation policies are applied consistently (and can scale with your environment).
- Adaptive Compliance-Driven Cloud Migrations
Misconfigurations during cloud migrations are a leading cause of breaches, accounting for 41% of security incidents.
New threats can emerge throughout the migration. These include cloud-specific vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and insider threats.
Keeping up with these evolving vulnerabilities requires continuous adaptation of the migration plan.
However, 50% of organisations lack visibility into their cloud environments, and failure to maintain detailed logs and documentation can lead to compliance issues. Several organisations have now recognised the need for continuous monitoring and audit trails during the migration.
With adaptive, compliance-driven migrations, the risk of being exposed to vulnerabilities during the change process is minimised.
Conclusion
Cloud data security can be challenging to maintain, but by implementing these often-overlooked strategies — continuous monitoring, automated data segmentation, and adaptive compliance-driven migration — you could reduce the risk of a costly data breach.
What next?
At Delta Capita, we work in partnership with leading technology partners and global, financial services clients to deliver innovative technology solutions and strategic advisory.
We encourage our clients to deploy cloud environments with a scalable, compliance-driven approach, rather than introduce the risk of cloud legacy debt.
Get in touch with us to understand how we can help you.
Please note that this article is an informed, professional interpretation of compliance-driven cloud adoption, and does not constitute formal guidance.
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