Three Security Pitfalls To Avoid During Your Cloud Migration
When developing a cloud migration strategy, you need to understand how the transition will impact cybersecurity
The real value of the cloud is the ability to scale resources as needed, enabling companies to meet market demand quickly. However, when developing a cloud migration strategy, you need to understand how the transition will impact cybersecurity and make the correct decisions.
When cloud computing first hit the scene, many organizations thought it would be a way to reduce overhead. It was believed the cost of cloud services would be significantly less than those associated with maintaining an on-premise data center.
As cloud services became more robust and capable, enterprises soon recognized the real advantage the cloud delivers – agility. The ability to scale compute and storage resources as needed, provision and deprovision services on demand, and deliver products to market quicker. These drivers are largely why the analyst firm Gartner predicts that by 2026 public cloud spending will account for 45% of all enterprise IT spending, up from less than 17% in 2021.
So it’s understandable that the vast majority of enterprise organizations are exploring how to transition – in whole or in part – from legacy on-premise IT infrastructure to the cloud. But the transition is not simple, and there is much to be figured out regarding strategy and execution.
The Most Common Security Mistakes in Cloud Migration
Organizations must understand how the transition will impact their cybersecurity posture and programs when developing a migration strategy. The nature of cloud-native technologies demands – in many ways – a fundamentally different approach to security, and it’s essential to plan and prepare. Let’s highlight three common pitfalls many organizations confront when developing a security plan for workloads being migrated to the cloud:
Pitfall #1: Lack of visibility into cloud assets and services
When migrating apps and workloads to the cloud, it’s crucial to have a comprehensive understanding of the underlying cloud assets, the services they will be utilizing, and their security configurations. The on-premise resources these workloads previously employed (servers, databases, storage, etc.) all had IP addresses, and their access and connectivity capabilities (i.e., “what can talk to what and who can talk to whom”) were most likely managed using network firewall rules. But in the cloud, the resources that applications utilize are often delivered as services, have no associated (or no static) IP address, and can be delivered through multiple cloud services, tenants, or availability zones. So to ensure these new cloud workloads are secure, it is critical to have complete visibility into the resources your migrated app will consume and have an easy way to evaluate their access and connectivity settings. Without this level of granular visibility, sensitive data managed, stored, or processed by these cloud resources may be at risk of exposure.
Pitfall #2: A shortage of necessary cloud talent
Cloud security requires a different approach than traditional network security. Service-based resources, microservices design architecture, containerization, infrastructure as code, and the DevOps pipelines are dominant paradigms in cloud environments. You need a team that understands how to implement appropriate security controls. It is necessary to know how to leverage security policy automation and security-as-code to take full advantage of the dynamism and agility the cloud makes possible without weakening your security stance. Understandably, there is a skills gap in the market, as demand far outstrips supply. Be sure you’ve built a solid team that understands the cloud, its trends and evolving methodologies.
See More: Cloud Security Posture Management: Four Ways To Clear Your Clouded Vision
Pitfall #3: Not using automation
Gartner predicts that by 2025, at least 99% of cloud security failures will be due to manual misconfigurations. This is not entirely surprising, given the sheer volume of security controls that need to be managed in cloud environments and the high velocity with which cloud architecture, services, and assets can change. But this pitfall can be avoided if organizations approach cloud security in the same manner they address the vast majority of other cloud operations – with automation.
Automation is a fundamental characteristic of the cloud. Cloud operators leverage tools like Jenkins, Ansible, and Terraform to automate a wide variety of tasks, including the provisioning of new assets and services, the promotion of applications, and onboarding new users. Developers can utilize code to automate processes that, in days past, could only be done via management consoles and tedious effort. Automation and “X-as-Code” are capabilities that make the cloud very attractive, as it removes the manual effort and minimizes the risk of misconfiguration.
Security automation takes many forms, but the most important is the use of security policy. These are rules or guardrails that ensure each cloud asset and service is provisioned and configured following your organization’s security and compliance protocols. For example, a security policy can dictate that any cloud storage service brought online needs the ability to communicate only with the resources it needs, using only specific protocols, and with no accessibility to the internet. Or, if your organization utilizes containers, a security policy may dictate precisely what resources can access and communicate with a new Kubernetes cluster being spun up by a development team member.
Policies are an effective means of driving security in the high-velocity world of the cloud, and injecting those policies into the automated processes cloud teams use is essential. Automatically evaluating proposed builds and promotions in the CI/CD pipeline against an organizational security policy is critical, so choosing an approach that supports your existing (or planned) automation tooling should be a priority.
See More: How To Best Capture Packet Data for Cloud Security
Mindful Migration
Organizations have many considerations to juggle regarding cloud adoption and migration, but having adequate visibility, the right team, and the right security automation strategy should undoubtedly be among the top priorities. Thoughtful planning on these fronts will ultimately optimize costs associated with security management, minimize the risk of configuration errors, streamline the process of demonstrating compliance, promote team collaboration, and most importantly, drive agility and business performance.
As you look to migrate applications or workloads to the cloud, ask yourself:
- Do I have a way to view all cloud (and on-prem) assets and services my apps and workloads are utilizing? Do I understand what talks to what and who talks to whom?
- Can I easily identify risky access and connectivity settings on my cloud assets and services? How do I prevent new assets from being provisioned with unprotected configurations?
- Does my team understand how cloud architecture differs from traditional network architecture and how to integrate security into the automated processes of the cloud?
The cloud offers the promise of incredible agility and competitive differentiation. By prioritizing the capabilities discussed above, you can avoid many of the challenges and barriers others have encountered.
What are your primary security concerns with cloud migration? Share with us on LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook. We’d love to get your take on this!
MORE ON CLOUD COMPUTING:
