Modern technology is advancing exponentially, rapidly rendering conventional cloud security strategies ineffective. Many organizations may find that the approaches which kept their data secure in previous years are no longer sufficient to combat the sophisticated threats of tomorrow. To adapt and protect valuable information, IT professionals must employ more advanced strategies and stay ahead of these emerging risks. How can organizations prepare their cloud environments for the cyber threats emerging in the forthcoming year?
1. Oversee Cloud Logs
With the increasing prevalence of cybercrime-as-a-service and state-sponsored cyberattacks, there’s an unexpected silver lining: attackers’ methods and tools often follow identifiable patterns. This uniformity allows defenders to anticipate and counteract many attacks effectively when approached with a well-coordinated strategy. Even if the sheer volume of threats increases, defending against them should remain manageable with a vigilant and tactical approach. One of the most effective methods for categorizing and responding to threats is by diligently overseeing cloud logs.
Cloud logs play a crucial role by providing IT professionals with the detailed information needed to categorize potential threats, which in turn informs crucial threat-hunting and penetration-testing procedures. Smaller businesses often rely on manual monitoring of these logs to minimize the risks associated with third-party access, while larger enterprises are better equipped to deploy advanced technologies designed to mitigate these additional vulnerabilities. By consistently and thoroughly managing cloud logs, IT teams can maintain a clearer picture of their security landscape, allowing them to identify and respond to potential threats before they escalate.
2. Implement Safeguards and Failsafes
In the interconnected environment of the cloud, a single misclick or seemingly minor mistake can have catastrophic consequences, compromising entire systems and exposing sensitive information. Given this heightened risk, it is absolutely essential that IT leaders take proactive measures to implement robust safeguards and fail-safes designed to mitigate the impact of human error.
These safeguards and fail-safes serve as a critical line of defense, helping to ensure that even if an error does occur, its impact is contained and managed effectively. This could involve instituting a range of practices and technologies, from multi-factor authentication and stringent access controls to automated systems for detecting and responding to anomalies. By addressing the human error factor head-on, these measures help to create a more resilient and secure cloud environment, reducing the likelihood of a single misstep leading to a widespread security breach.
3. Automate Alert Sorting
For many IT teams, the deluge of security alerts can feel unending, with days or even weeks often spent sifting through false positives in an attempt to identify genuine threats. This manual sorting process isn’t just time-consuming; it’s also financially draining. In the United States alone, firms spend an estimated $3.3 billion annually on manual alert sorting, highlighting the urgent need for a more efficient and cost-effective solution.
The advent of automation provides a promising answer to this challenge. Leveraging artificial intelligence (AI), businesses can now automate the prioritization, evaluation, and confirmation of security alerts. Advanced algorithms, capable of learning and adapting over time, can intelligently determine when they are able to handle tasks independently and when human intervention is necessary. This streamlined workflow not only reduces the burden on IT staff but also enhances overall accuracy, ensuring that genuine threats are addressed promptly while minimizing the incidence of false positives.
4. Reassign and Eliminate NHIs
Nonhuman identities (NHIs)—such as service accounts, cloud instances, access tokens, and application programming interface (API) keys—are fundamental to the seamless operation of cloud environments. However, they also present unique security challenges that must be addressed. Alarmingly, only 15% of companies feel highly confident in their ability to prevent NHI-related attacks, a stark contrast to the 25% who believe they can effectively ward off threats targeting human identities. This disparity is largely due to the fact that NHIs outnumber human identities by a staggering 20-to-1 ratio.
To mitigate the risks associated with NHIs, IT workers should employ mapping techniques to reassign ownership, eliminate redundant or outdated NHIs, and thereby reduce the overall attack surface. By maintaining strict oversight of NHIs and ensuring that they are appropriately managed and monitored, organizations can significantly bolster their defenses against potential threats. This proactive approach helps to ensure that NHIs continue to support operational continuity without compromising security.
5. It Is Time to Overhaul Cloud Security
Modern technology is advancing at a breakneck pace, making traditional cloud security measures quickly obsolete. As a result, numerous organizations may discover that the strategies that once safeguarded their data are no longer adequate to fend off the sophisticated threats anticipated in the near future. To effectively defend their valuable information, IT professionals need to adopt more advanced, forward-thinking strategies and remain vigilant against emerging risks.
To begin with, organizations must prioritize continuous education and training for their IT staff, ensuring they are well-versed in the latest security protocols and threat landscapes. Investing in AI and machine learning technologies can help in identifying and mitigating risks in real-time, providing a more dynamic response to emerging threats. Regularly updating and patching systems is also crucial, as outdated software can become a gateway for cyber attacks. Additionally, implementing zero-trust architecture, which assumes that every entity, inside or outside the network, could be a potential threat, can offer an extra layer of protection. Lastly, fostering a culture of security awareness among all employees, not just IT staff, can help in making the entire organization more resilient to cyber attacks by ensuring that everyone understands their role in protecting the company’s data.