Enterprise Cloud Security: Secure cloud deployments at scale

What is enterprise cloud security?

Enterprise cloud security encompasses the measures, policies, and technologies designed to protect the sensitive data, applications, and infrastructure of businesses that leverage the cloud. As organizations turn to cloud environments to meet their digital needs, comprehensive cloud security solutions become increasingly important to combat security risks.

Cloud security risks include data breaches, cyberattacks, unauthorized access, and third-party vulnerabilities. To mitigate these risks, businesses must implement security best practices like multi-factor authentication, encryption, and network segmentation. Further, technologies like firewalls, intrusion detection and prevention systems (IDPS), and security information and event management systems (SIEM) can help businesses detect and respond to threats in real time and provide visibility and control over cloud environments.

In the face of many threats, enterprises must take a comprehensive approach to cyber security to protect sensitive data and infrastructure in the cloud.

How is cloud security different for enterprises?

Cloud security is the techniques and tools used to secure cloud infrastructure, applications, and data — but it’s a little more complicated for an enterprise. That’s because enterprise companies leverage complex architectures and large-scale deployments. These architectures often include a mix of private, public, and hybrid cloud environments and multiple cloud providers.

This complexity can create unique security challenges, such as managing different security controls across various cloud environments and integrating cloud security with existing security policies and practices. As a result, enterprises must implement more comprehensive and sophisticated cloud security solutions to address these challenges.

Enterprise cloud security challenges

Due to the nature of many enterprise cloud environments, businesses face several challenges that can compromise the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of data and applications. These cloud security challenges include:

• Misconfigurations: A common cloud security challenge, configuration errors can create security holes and expose sensitive data to unauthorized access.

• Data breaches: Cybercriminals may attempt to steal sensitive business data, such as customer data, intellectual property, and financial information — then profit from the theft.

• Unauthorized access: Bad actors may use stolen credentials or exploit vulnerabilities in the cloud environment to gain access to sensitive data and applications.

• Loss of data: Data loss can occur due to accidental deletion, system failures, or cyber-attacks. The loss of essential business data can have severe repercussions for the enterprise.

• Compliance: Enterprises must often comply with regulatory requirements and standards, such as HIPAA, PCI DSS, and GDPR. Failure to do so can result in fines and brand damage.

• Managing complex deployments: The complexity of cloud environments makes it difficult to manage security controls and ensure consistency across all technologies and networks.

• Observability: With multiple cloud environments and applications in the wild, it can be challenging for IT to monitor and detect security incidents in real-time.

Enterprise cloud security best practices

Enterprises can’t afford to leave their cloud security to chance. Following these best practices can help protect sensitive business data and infrastructure in the cloud:

• Implement strong access controls: Access controls are crucial to securing enterprise cloud environments. Strong authentication mechanisms, such as multi-factor authentication (MFA), ensure only authorized users can access cloud resources.

• Use encryption in transit and at rest: Data encryption is a critical security measure for protecting sensitive data from unauthorized access. Encrypt data both in transit and at rest to ensure its confidentiality and integrity.

• Establish a robust Identity and Access Management (IAM) solution: IAM solutions help organizations manage user access to cloud resources. Using IAM to assign permissions, roles, and policies to individual users and groups ensures they have access on a need-to-know basis.

• Implement network segmentation: Network segmentation separates different parts of the cloud environment to isolate potential security breaches. Implementing firewalls and other network security measures helps restrict unauthorized access and limits the spread of any potential attacks.

• Monitor cloud environments: Monitoring and logging provide visibility into cloud environments, which is essential for detecting and responding to security incidents. Use logging and monitoring tools to track user activities, system events, and network traffic.

• Regularly test and audit: Testing and auditing cloud environments regularly helps identify potential vulnerabilities before they can be exploited. Conduct regular penetration testing, vulnerability scanning, and security audits to ensure security controls function correctly.

• Leverage a Defense-in-Depth approach: A Defense-in-Depth approach involves implementing multiple layers of security controls, such as firewalls, IDPS, and security information and event management (SIEM) systems. This technique provides comprehensive protection against various security threats.

Cloud compliance for the enterprise

As mentioned, compliance is crucial for enterprises and is a differentiator between it and other cloud deployments. 

Why is compliance important at the enterprise level?

Compliance is important at the cloud level because businesses that use cloud computing are responsible for maintaining the security and privacy of their data, as well as complying with various regulations and industry standards. Failure to do so can result in severe penalties, legal liability, and brand damage. Compliance is essential for enterprises because it:

• Protects sensitive data: Compliance standards best ensure that sensitive data is adequately protected and not accessible to unauthorized parties.

• Reduces legal and financial risks: Non-compliance with regulatory requirements can result in fines, lawsuits, and costly damage to an organization’s reputation.

• Enhances trust with customers and partners: Adhering to compliance standards can increase trust with customers and partners. It demonstrates a commitment to protecting their data and complying with industry standards.

Which compliance standards should enterprises adhere to?

The compliance standards your company must adhere to will depend on your industry, service, and region where you do business. A few common compliance standards include: 

• General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR): GDPR is a regulation that governs how companies collect, use, and store the personal data of EU citizens.

• California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA): A close equivalent to the (GDPR) in California, CCPA is a comprehensive data privacy law that grants California residents certain rights over their personal information held by businesses.

• Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA): HIPAA is a regulation that governs how healthcare organizations handle sensitive patient data.

• Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS): PCI DSS is a standard that governs how companies that accept credit card payments store, process, and transmit credit card data.

• Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP): FedRAMP is a US government-wide program that provides a standardized approach to security assessment, authorization, and continuous monitoring of cloud services.

• Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX): SOX is a regulation that governs how public companies manage their financial reporting and auditing.

• ISO/IEC 27001: ISO/IEC 27001 is a standard that provides a framework for information security management systems (ISMS) and is widely recognized as a benchmark for information security.

• National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Cybersecurity Framework: The NIST Cybersecurity Framework is a voluntary framework that provides guidance for organizations to improve their cybersecurity posture and manage cybersecurity risks.

Compliance standards set by organizations, industries, and governments frequently demand various requirements related to networking, data storage, and computing. Policy as code provides a convenient method to convert these requirements into code and enforce compliance controls early in the development of applications, cloud infrastructure, and infrastructure as code (IaC).

How do enterprise businesses maintain cloud compliance?

Maintaining cloud compliance is non-negotiable for enterprises looking to stay in business. Here’s how to remain compliant with the appropriate regulations: 

• Conduct regular risk assessments: Regular risk assessments can help identify potential vulnerabilities in the cloud environment, allowing organizations to take appropriate measures to mitigate these risks.

• Establish a comprehensive security policy: A comprehensive security policy should define the organization's security requirements and outline the measures that the enterprise will take to comply with regulatory standards.

• Implement access controls and data encryption: Access controls and data encryption are essential measures to protect sensitive data and ensure that only authorized parties can access it

• Monitor cloud environments: Monitoring and logging provide visibility into cloud environments, allowing for fast detection and response to security incidents.

• Conduct regular compliance audits: Regular compliance audits can help identify potential compliance gaps and ensure that the organization is adhering to regulatory standards.

Emerging trends in enterprise cloud security:

As businesses migrate their IT infrastructure to the cloud, it is important to stay up-to-date on the latest trends and appropriate security measures to protect cloud workloads, data, and applications. These can include:

• AI for attack and defense: Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly being used to both attack and defend cloud-based systems. Bad actors can use AI to automate attacks and make them more sophisticated. Security teams can use AI to detect and respond to attacks more quickly and effectively — automating incident response and remediation freeing security teams to focus on more complex tasks. Snyk leverages Deepcode AI technology to enhance our security solutions.

• Cloud native security: Cloud native security solutions are built using cloud-specific technologies and are designed to protect cloud workloads, data, and applications. These solutions typically include features such as cloud-based firewalls, threat intelligence, and automated security policies.

• Hybrid clouds: Securing hybrid clouds can be challenging as they require cloud native and on-premise security solutions. As such, organizations are turning to hybrid cloud security solutions that can provide end-to-end security across both cloud and on-premise environments.

• Zero trust security: Zero trust is a security framework that automatically distrusts every user or device, even if it is inside the corporate network perimeter. Thus, all users and devices must be verified and authenticated before they are granted access to resources. Zero trust is becoming more important as more organizations move their data and applications to the cloud, as it can help prevent data breaches and unauthorized access.

Enterprise cloud security solutions & tools

A few popular enterprise security solutions and tools include: 

• Container security: Container security refers to the measures taken to secure the containers used to run applications in cloud environments. These lightweight alternatives to virtual machines are commonly used to package and deploy applications in cloud environments. Container security solutions identify vulnerabilities in container images, monitor container activity to prevent attacks, and ensure that containers comply with security policies. 

• IaC security: IaC (infrastructure as code) security refers to the measures taken to secure the code used to manage infrastructure in cloud environments. IaC security solutions identify security vulnerabilities in infrastructure code, ensure that infrastructure code complies with security policies, and monitor infrastructure code to prevent attacks. 

• Cloud security: Cloud security refers to the measures taken to secure cloud environments and the data and applications hosted within. These solutions protect against data breaches, denial-of-service attacks, and malware. They typically include features such as firewalls, intrusion detection and prevention, identity and access management, and data encryption. 

How Snyk can help with enterprise cloud security

Snyk is a cloud-native security platform that helps enterprises secure their cloud infrastructure and applications while reducing the risk of security incidents. Snyk provides a comprehensive view of your cloud infrastructure and applications. It integrates with your DevOps tools to scan for vulnerabilities in real time, helping you prioritize them based on severity and potential impact.

Snyk container and Kubernetes security help developers and DevOps find and fix vulnerabilities throughout the SDLC — before workloads hit production. Snyk scans your container images for vulnerabilities, malware, and other security threats, then provides actionable recommendations to remediate them.

Also, Snyk helps your business stay compliant with various industry standards, such as PCI DSS, HIPAA, and GDPR. Snyk continuously monitors your cloud infrastructure and applications to ensure they meet compliance requirements. Our features (reporting, monitoring, security training, and more) map to many SOC 2, ISO 27001, and PCI-DSS controls to help you maintain compliance.

Snyk IaC security helps automate the process of ensuring cloud environments meet compliance standards with built-in rule support and reporting for 10+ supported frameworks including SOC 2, ISO 27001, CIS, HIPAA, PCI-DSS. Snyk improves your compliance posture by detecting misconfigurations and compliance violations across the SDLC and running cloud environments and providing developers with fast feedback and suggested fixes in-line with code.