Cloud Security Modernization: 4 Strategies for Better Protection

Modernizing your cloud security efforts is a highly individualized exercise that businesses have to undergo with their goals and the ever-changing nature of cloud environments in mind. When organizations engage in security modernization projects, they’re taking a proactive approach to finding, evaluating, and reducing security risks in the cloud. We’ll address what security modernization in the cloud might look like for your business, along with essential tools, key trends, and common challenges.

What is Cloud Security Modernization?

Adopting cloud technologies can be hugely beneficial to organizations, but cloud security modernization comes with its own challenges. Security is one of the biggest challenges cited by technical professionals and IT leaders in the recently released TierPoint report on IT modernization. The best way to keep up is by modernizing your security procedures along with the rest of your cloud modernization strategies. By modernizing security strategies, businesses can improve their security posture, streamline operations, reduce security costs, and accelerate internal cloud adoption.

Traditional vs. Modern Cloud Security Approaches

So, what makes modern cloud security approaches different from traditional strategies? In essence, legacy systems are often static and centralized, while cloud environments are dynamic, distributed, and constantly evolving. Modern cloud security employs automation to streamline processes, leverages advanced threat detection and response techniques (such as AI- and ML-driven insights), and prioritizes identity and access management (IAM) to secure resources in a perimeter-less environment. Modern approaches also incorporate zero-trust principles, ensuring continuous verification of users, devices, and data flows regardless of their location.

Principles of Modern Cloud Security

Some main pillars of modern cloud security include zero-trust architecture, the shared responsibility model, and automated security solutions.

Shared Responsibility Model

All businesses using cloud resources must understand that they are participating in a shared responsibility model, where both the cloud service provider and customer share responsibility for the security of the environment. AWS, in this case, would be responsible for matters such as securing the cloud infrastructure, whereas users are responsible for securing the data and applications. Shared responsibility models can differ depending on the level of service a business is using.

Zero-Trust Architecture

Zero-trust architecture is built on the premise of “never trust, always verify.” This means that before accessing any resources, all users, applications, and devices must be authenticated and authorized every time. Zero-trust architecture also means verifying regardless of network location.

Organizations that employ zero-trust architecture may also follow the least privilege principle, providing the minimum necessary permissions that users may need to perform their tasks.

Automation and Orchestration in Security

Automated security controls can help reduce human error within security measures and help organizations secure their environments more efficiently. Security orchestration, automation, and response (SOAR) can make tasks like incident response and threat monitoring automatic. Automated systems can also continuously monitor and quickly remediate issues related to security.

Modern Security Technologies and Tools

When businesses are looking to improve their cloud security, they may want to consider implementing technologies and approaches such as cloud security posture management (CSPM), identity and access management (IAM), and security information and event management (SIEM).

Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)

CSPM tools can help businesses see where vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and compliance gaps may have been made that could lead to a cloud environment being less than secure. Across cloud environments, CSPM tools can improve your ability to enforce security posture and assess, monitor, and enforce organizational security policies. Key elements of cloud security posture management include:

• Configuration assessment: Finds non-compliant resources and misconfigurations
• Vulnerability scanning: Pinpoints vulnerabilities in the cloud
• Policy enforcement: Enforces security standards and policies
• Threat detection: Finds and responds to security threats

Identity and Access Management (IAM)

Identity and access management (IAM) solutions control who has what access to resources in the cloud. By using the following tools, organizations can manage the permissions, roles, and identities associated with each user in the system:

• User authentication: Analyzes and verifies credentials for users
• Single sign-on: Provides a unified venue for users to log in to multiple applications with one set of credentials
• Multi-factor authentication: Requires more than one form of identification to verify log-in
• Role-based access control: Sets permissions based on roles associated with users

Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)

SIEM solutions collect logs from various sources across your cloud environment, including servers, network devices, and applications. Using these logs, SIEM tools identify patterns or anomalies that may be indicative of vulnerabilities or bad actors. When a SIEM solution detects a security threat, it can trigger an automated response. Sometimes, businesses are required to implement a SIEM solution that monitors, acts, and generates reports for compliance purposes.

Key Challenges in Cloud Security

Challenges in cloud security, much like the cloud environment itself, will always be changing, but here are some of the most prevalent threats businesses should look out for today.

The Evolving Threat Landscape

Cybercriminals are working to stay one step ahead of businesses, rolling out progressively more sophisticated and targeted attacks. Ransomware, malicious software that encrypts or locks data until a ransom is paid, can even be purchased by bad actors like everyday users would purchase software. Data breaches can affect any size company, and the threat continues to grow. On average, data breaches cost organizations $4.88 million, according to IBM’s 2024 Cost of a Data Breach. Insider threats can be even more costly, running businesses $4.99 million on average.

Complexity in Multicloud Environments

When a business is managing more than one cloud environment, it can become more difficult to coordinate security policies and procedures. While cloud providers offer similar tools, maintaining consistent security standards can still be complex due to differences in network, identity, and resource architectures. Without unified resources, it can be tricky to maintain visibility when it comes to security events and attack threats, IAM processes, implementing zero-trust principles, and integrating tools.

Data Privacy and Compliance Issues

Many businesses need to adhere to more than one data privacy regulation. For example, healthcare organizations must be compliant with HIPAA. Consumers in California are protected by CCPA. Organizations may also have to abide by certain data sovereignty regulations, like ensuring data is processed and stored in certain geographic locations. To be eligible for cyber insurance, it is important that businesses keep up with compliance requirements and have a plan in place to mitigate risks associated with data breaches.

4 Essential Strategies for Modern Cloud Security

Security modernization strategies need to be tailored to an organization’s current cloud environment and grow to fit their future goals. This process starts by assessing the current security methods being used, identifying risks and vulnerabilities, and setting goals for where you want the business to be after implementing modernization tactics.

1. Assessing Current Security Methods

Assessment can include evaluating your business’s security posture, risks, and compliance in your current configuration. An IT team tasked with security modernization should be asking the following questions:

• What does our current security posture look like across physical, network, and application layers?
• What vulnerabilities and risks exist within our current environment?
• What changes are needed to ensure compliance with relevant regulations and standards?

2. Conducting Security Audits and Assessments

Different security audits and assessments can be useful in different scenarios. For example, penetration testing can use simulated attacks to find weaknesses in established security controls, while vulnerability scanning can identify vulnerabilities and misconfigurations in a current cloud environment.

Regular assessments are essential to stay ahead of evolving threats, close security gaps quickly, and ensure continuous alignment with best practices. Organizations should establish a cadence for these activities, such as quarterly vulnerability scans and annual penetration tests, to maintain a robust security posture.

3. Identifying Vulnerabilities and Risks

Threat modeling can analyze potential threats by breaking down a system into its components and evaluating the risk and possible impact of attacks based on observed vulnerabilities. Once threats have been identified and weighed, vulnerability management can prioritize and address vulnerabilities found in your cloud environment.

4. Setting Security Goals and KPIs

Your goal can’t just be to make your environment “more secure.” Businesses should clearly articulate their security objectives. For example, you may want to set a goal around reducing the time needed to find and respond to security incidents, the time it takes to recover systems after an outage (recovery time objective), or the amount of data that is lost after a breach (recovery point objective). After your organization establishes security goals, it becomes easier to develop a roadmap that allows you to achieve your goals and assess the effectiveness of different strategies.

Best Practices for the Future of Modern Cloud Security

Cloud security risks will continue to develop and evolve. It’s important for organizations to not only understand how they can keep themselves safe in the current cloud landscape, but also how they can protect their systems from whatever the future brings. Establishing strong governance frameworks, committing to continuous monitoring, and engaging in employee training and awareness programs can help businesses be better prepared for what’s to come.

Governance and Compliance

A strong security governance framework starts with forming and implementing various standards, policies, and procedures that enforce consistent security practices organization wide. By conducting regular security audits and assessments, businesses can address compliance gaps and security vulnerabilities quickly. One or more members of the team should be tasked with the responsibility to keep up with relevant regulations, such as HIPAA, GDPR, and PCI-DSS, depending on the industry, type of business, or geography that the organization serves.

Continuous Monitoring and Incident Response

Robust monitoring and logging should involve observing network traffic, system logs, and security events to pinpoint anomalies and threats that can negatively impact your cloud environment. Of course, monitoring alone isn’t enough. Businesses need to have procedures in place for how to respond to security incidents. This can include steps for detection, containment, removal, recovery, and taking time after the incident has been resolved to collect lessons learned. Incident response plans shouldn’t be put to the test only after an incident has occurred—they should be preemptively tested and improved with drills and simulations.

Employee Training and Awareness

Employees can provide a strong initial defense against security incidents. Conduct regular training sessions on topics related to security best practices, such as:

• How to have strong password hygiene and multi-factor authentication
• How to spot and prevent phishing attacks
• How to avoid falling for social engineering tactics

When you promote a culture of security risk awareness, you can greatly reduce the risk associated with security incidents. Encourage employees to report suspicious activity and participate in these training programs. You may also want to ensure the training is ongoing, not just when an employee is first hired, by using phishing simulations, publishing security newsletters, and requiring participation in interactive training modules.

Protect Your Company’s Most Sensitive Data

Don’t open your organization up to being the next news story about security measures gone wrong. Implementing robust security measures can significantly reduce the risk of data breaches and protect your organization’s users. Working with a trusted partner, like TierPoint, can help you greatly improve your security posture and allow your team to work on bigger and better things.

For more about the future of cloud security and IT modernization, get your copy of the new TierPoint industry report.