
Regardless of your cloud vendor, your cloud’s security could be at risk. The Cloud Security Alliance recently published a report that highlighted the top 9 security risks that organizations may encounter. It is important to familiarize yourself with these 9 risks which were nicknamed the notorious nine. If you are ever confronted with one of these situations, you will know which course of action you will need to take.
Data Breaches
A data breach can be a costly event for all parties involved. Figuring out a method for your cloud to house data without it being compromised should be your number 1 priority. When you house sensitive data, you should always use an encryption product as an extra layer of protection for your data.
Data Loss
You wake up one morning, log into your cloud interface and the data you need is missing! Perhaps your data is corrupted? Whatever the case may be, your data is inaccessible and having a cloud backup of your data is imperative incase a data loss occurs.
Account Hijacking
When a hacker gains credentials to either the root account, an account with limited rights or even a service account, your clouds security could be compromised. Is there a solution? Think about using 2 factor authentication, setup complex password requirements for users and ensure that passwords expire incase you create a test account that is seldom used.
Insecure APIs and Interfaces
When you are given an API, how do you know that all of the security holes have been plugged? How do you know if a security audit has been performed on the API at all? Familiarize yourself with the specific APIs in your environment and educate yourself on the latest security bulletins that are posted on the specific products that you use in your cloud.
In part two of this series, we will talk about more advanced cloud security threats and what your mindset should be in regards to deflecting these attacks.