5 steps to secure your multi-cloud

With multi-cloud infrastructures, having multiple security tools from multiple vendors results in a fragmented security environment.

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5 steps to secure your multi-cloud

If you are an organisation with a single cloud computing strategy, you may find your options limited when renegotiating contracts, scaling capacity and even supporting new applications and services your organisation wants to deploy.

Many enterprises have engaged a multi-cloud strategy to give themselves more options that a growing, modern business would expect. A multi cloud IT infrastructure can support different applications and workloads deploying the solution best suited to their needs. But to ensure this infrastructure proves its worth, you want to heed one piece of advice: make sure that you are taking appropriate security precautions. Why? Because if the pundits are to be believed, by 2020, around 95% of cloud security failures will be the customer’s fault.

So what can IT managers do to protect the entire ecosystem? Here is a 5-step multi-cloud protection framework you can rely on:

1. Test for failures

Ensure integrations and data pipelines are in place by running all of your clouds (even at minimal capacity) all the time. Remember, there is a huge difference between scaling up and starting up, so you do not want to be caught off-guard if you cannot manage a failover at a critical moment. Simulate a failover with any one of your cloud services and let another cloud take over the workload. Schedule this during off-peak hours in a controlled setting so you can see the problems you may unknowingly create and learn to face them. Switch your users from cloud to cloud to evaluate random issues so you have a head start on problems in an actual crisis.

2. Get insured

Invest in a cloud access security broker (CASB) to protect your cloud-based data. CASBs are situated between your on-premise infrastructure (including the private cloud) and your cloud vendor’s security infrastructure and architecture. They link your internal architecture to the cloud and enforce security policies by providing safe passage for your corporate data to move to and from the cloud. This is especially so with Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) applications where data is constantly on the move.

In essence, a CASB is a central clearing house; part broker, auditor, filter and filtration/exfiltration check. As long as your end users employ cloud resources in their daily operations, and your organisation’s security extends only to the perimeter of your network, a CASB will be critical in securing your corporate data.

3. Manage the integration

A CASB platform is not designed to focus on network infrastructure or in-house applications, so it is critical that organisations carefully manage integration with existing systems, such as next-generation firewalls, network access control and security information and event management products. Enterprises will not be keen to manage an entirely separate system that is dedicated to just third party or SaaS cloud apps. In the SaaS space, CASB platforms support major cloud app providers such as Microsoft Office 365, Google Drive and Salesforce.

Enterprises should be aware of the limitations of specific cloud platforms, as well as what specific services those platforms provide – such as encryption, threat detection and analytics before deploying a CASB platform.

4. Make it frictionless!

With multi-cloud infrastructures, having multiple security tools from multiple vendors results in a fragmented security environment. This is because IT personnel must manually correlate data to implement security protocols. This level of human intervention is vulnerable to human error that can expose organisations to danger. Security capabilities must therefore be delivered consistently across private clouds, IaaS, PaaS and SaaS in a frictionless manner, with minimal impact to continuity. One way to achieve this is through automation embedded in all business processes interfacing with the cloud. This will ensure consistent protection, mitigation of threats and remediation without waiting for human intervention. Also, security requirements for IaaS and PaaS must be delivered through a unified approach that supports applications and data across the major cloud service platforms such as Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud.

5. Single-pane-of-glass (SPOG) security

Bringing disparate sources of multi-cloud data and security parameters together into one centralised console allows IT managers and support teams to gain actionable insight on things easily. This is not always easy, but the mindset behind striving to achieve a SPOG ideal is what makes for a secure and harmonised multi-cloud infrastructure.

Naturally, as with out-of-the-box variables, the multi-cloud security mandates are still susceptible to the vagaries of your unique organisational culture and constraints. Consulting a cloud expert can sharpen the steps above and bring things into focus for prescient and actionable planning.