The introduction of cloud computing has opened a box of opportunities for all modern-age companies. Great computing power and scalability have allowed businesses to grow exponentially. However, cloud-based infrastructure have been targeted heavily by cyber attackers calling for risk management measures.
A secure cloud-computing environment can be highly beneficial for companies of all kinds, and to achieve that, cloud risk management best practices are a critical need. Therefore, we bring you a guide to learn about all the best practices you need to know to create a robust cloud management plan and unlock the full potential of cloud computing technology.
What is Risk Management in Cloud Computing?
To understand cloud security risk management, you first need to dive through the basics of cloud computing. Cloud computing allows data and other resources to be delivered on-demand over the internet. The data is stored in one physical location but can be accessed anywhere with an internet connection.
However, as more companies migrate to cloud-based infrastructures, they face security challenges on every level. This is where risk management comes into play. It is a process where the risks to an organization are identified, assessed, and controlled to safeguard the system from any threats.
Effectively forming a risk management plan helps to make a robust security structure for companies. By quantifying the risks to a company through a proper risk management strategy, you can create an efficient software development cycle that is secured.
Types of Risks in Cloud Computing
Let’s check out some primary risks affecting a cloud computing environment.
Cloud Service Provider Risk:
Several vendors offer cloud services, which a company then avails. A cloud vendor must stress the importance of cloud security and the critical steps to mitigate threats. If not, the company availing the services is at risk of attack.
Internet Availability:
Around-the-clock internet connectivity is crucial for accessing a cloud provider’s services and maintaining seamless data transfer. Losing internet connectivity can also cause the company’s services to fail and create distrust among clients.
Compliance Risk:
A cloud service provider that is not compliant with industry standards of managing data and security risks, in turn, may affect the organization using their services. You must consider taking services from a compliant cloud provider.
Breach Of Data:
Hackers are always looking to access a company’s data as they can sell it on the dark web. Cloud computing companies use the cloud vendor’s data center to store data. An attack on the Cloud service provider can result in all the partner companies having their data compromised.
External Security Risks:
This is the most common risk associated with cloud computing and, for sure, the most deadly one. We have pointed out some external security risks to your system.
- User Account Hijacking: Cloud-based systems require users to set solid account credentials. An account protected with a weak password is easy to exploit by a hacker and gain access to the cloud system. Once an attacker has gained access, it is also hard to identify an intruder by cloud-based systems.
- Accessible To Everyone: Cloud computing environments are connected to the public internet to ease users’ access. This also presents them out in the open to cyber attackers who can enter unauthorized if they have the required skill set.
How to Calculate the Potential Risk
A risk is calculated using the formula below:
Potential Risk = Likelihood of a threat X The threat’s impact.
This equation helps to determine the severity of a risk and allows you to classify them. Marking threats according to their severity is essential for any risk management framework. The risks that require immediate attention should be addressed first, and calculating the potentiality of harm helps you target them first with all your resources.
A risk that might seem highly important to address might not be harmful. Let’s say a vulnerability that any unauthorized person can access is highly important to address in comparison to a vulnerability that can only be exploited with security access.
Cloud Security Risk Management Process
Cloud security risk management is executed in a cycle of five steps. These five steps help to create a mode of practice for the organization to maintain robust security features in their system. The five knights of an effective risk management process with a brief description are mentioned below.
Identifying A Risk:
The first step for effectively managing risks requires you first to identify them. Your security team can handle this and help identify potential obstacles affecting your company’s productivity. Some common cloud computing risks have already been identified for you above.
Analyzing A Risk:
Once a risk is identified, assessing its impact on your organization is vital. In cyber security, the impact of a risk is determined by the level of harm it can cause to your system. Analyzing the risk helps you understand the associated threats and how they can affect your organization’s productivity if they come to fruition. A proper cloud risk assessment checklist can take you a long way.
Evaluating A Risk:
Properly evaluating a risk helps you prioritize the ones needing immediate attention. By assigning different scores to the risks in your system, you can continue to mitigate them from the ones with the highest to the lowest severity. To get a head start, check out our risk calculation formula above.
Mitigating The Risk:
Evaluating the risks through the prior step has already presented you with data on the severity of the threats. You can now continue using the different tools in your security arsenal to rapidly mitigate these risks from high to low severity. It is also essential to continue to analyze your different security measures and their effectiveness when mitigating these risks.
Monitoring The Risk:
Once a risk has been mitigated, it is best to continue following up. This helps to know if the danger has been dealt with for good. Documenting the threat mitigation process can also be crucial as it helps address similar threats quickly if they ever appear again.
Benefits of Risk Management
Cloud computing environments have a lot of potential if a proper risk management plan is carried out. An efficient risk management plan can help an organization to materialize its goals faster and more productively. Check out some of the benefits associated with cloud risk management.
Predict Potential Risks:
Risk management frameworks help effectively identify any possible risks associated with your company. This helps to keep future risks at bay and mitigate them easily, as your system is already prepared.
Increase Business Growth:
A proper risk management plan always keeps your system prepared. When a threat hits your system, your cloud risk management framework helps to mitigate it on time and ensure that your system functions efficiently. With no disruptions of services, you can concentrate on boosting your business.
Documentation:
Documentation is an integral part of a risk management process. By having everything on paper, you can analyze your company’s processes. This helps you to improve a sector if needed.
Better Use Of Resources:
Having risk management plans also helps you to strategize how to use your resources. This saves time and money, which can be invested elsewhere for a more efficient infrastructure.
Cloud Risk Management Best Practices
To increase the effectiveness of your cloud risk management strategy, it is crucial to adhere to some best practices. These practices help your organization to mitigate threats more efficiently and eventually build a robust security system.
Assessing The Cloud Service Provider:
Assessing a CSP before using their services can significantly help you in the long run. Check if the vendor is compliant, follows security best practices in risk management, is available when you need them, and their relation with other business owners. A CSP at risk eventually means you are at risk. Therefore, tread carefully.
Deploying CASB:
A Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB) is the middleman between CSPs and service users. They help ensure security policies are being applied to the cloud and strictly followed. CASB provides real-time monitoring of the cloud services to identify any threats and the data being transferred in and out of the cloud.
Using The Right Security Control:
It is crucial for your security team to study the risks to your system and to know what security controls should be dispatched to mitigate them effectively.
Prioritizing Availability Of Services:
No internet equals no services. The best way to address this is by creating a redundancy of servers according to different zones or regions. This ensures that your services are always backed up.
Understanding The Shared Responsibility Model:
The shared responsibility model states the distribution of security responsibilities between the cloud service provider and the company using its services. The SRP says that the organization would be responsible for a data breach or unauthorized access to the system.
Store Your Encryption Keys Away From Data:
Risks of storing data in the cloud are high. That is why you should NEVER store your encryption keys where your data is. This makes it easy for hackers to decrypt the data. Consider keeping the keys in a different physical location or with a third-party encryption key management service.
FAQ
How do we mitigate the risk of cloud computing?
We can adopt a few different strategies to mitigate cloud computing risks effectively. This may include setting up robust user authentication methods, encryption of data being transferred or stored, regularly monitoring and assessing the security measures, using multi-factor authentication, and being compliant with security regulations.
Will risk management be automated?
Security teams worldwide are moving to automate their risk management plan to mitigate threats faster and in real-time. This also helps to constantly scan and monitor threats, giving you more time to patch your system. Many third-party vendors, such as CloudDefense.AI, are trusted to provide automated security solutions.
What are the common security challenges in cloud risk management?
Some common risks and challenges of cloud computing in risk management include account hijacking, data breaches, insider threats, insecure APIs, and improper access authentication measures.
Are there industry-specific best practices for cloud risk management?
Compliance standards such as PCI, ISO, HIPAA, and GDPR help you understand the industry-specific best practices you need to follow to create your cloud risk management policy.
Conclusion
Cloud Computing is no longer a trend but a reality as more companies adopt its powerful capabilities. However, a proper risk management plan must be created to address any security challenges associated with this powerful technology. Make sure that your system has that survival instinct to constantly adapt and evolve according to the threats to its system. Get the required feedback from all the parties involved to craft the best possible risk management plan for your organization.
