Main Cloud Security Risks

Those groups are closely studied by threat intelligence outfits, who publish detailed reports on the groups’ methods and tactics. According to the CSA report, third-party risks exist in every product and service we consume. It noted that because a product or service is a sum of all the other products and services it’s using, an exploit can start at any point in the supply chain for the product and proliferate from there. Threat actors know they only need to compromise the weakest link in a supply chain to spread their malicious software, oftentimes using the same vehicles developers use to scale their software.

• As a Senior Fellow at the CyberTheory Zero Trust Institute and a Forbes Tech Council member, Richard’s insights are often featured in top media, including the Wall Street Journal, CNBC, and CNN.
• In that case, they may have access to sensitive information or capabilities, and if a customer’s credentials are compromised, the attacker gains complete access to the customer’s online account.
• However, while facilitating these efficiencies, APIs have expanded the enterprise risk profile.
• Secure your apps and data with a flexible framework for a hybrid and multicloud world.
• Additionally, in the cloud, organizations often lack the ability to identify and respond to these threats as effectively as for on-premises infrastructure.

A data breach can lead to severe consequences such as financial loss, reputational damage, and legal implications. This means that cloud infrastructure that is improperly configured can lead to unauthorised access to sensitive information. There are growing concerns over data privacy and the need to protect Personally Identifiable Information (PII) and other regulated data.

Products and Services

In 2023, it’s expected that these threats will continue to evolve, with hackers using more sophisticated tactics like file-less malware to evade detection. In another report by Statista in May 2023, In the first half of 2022 alone, there were 236.1 million ransomware attacks worldwide. Between the first and second quarters of 2022, ransomware attacks increased by 18%, from almost 130 million events to roughly 106 million instances globally. Ransomware alone affected 71% of businesses worldwide in 2022 and 62.9% of the victims of ransomware attacks paid the ransom. According to research from Intel, insider threats are responsible for an incredible 43 percent of all breaches. Examples include EU data protection, PCI DSS, FISMA, GLBA, HIPAA, and FERPA – to name a few.

Avoid storing sensitive information on the cloud to prevent blackmail or embarrassment if it falls into the wrong hands. In addition to the obvious, such as your Social Security number, copies of your IDs, or important financial statements—even old ones—consider what other information someone could get their hands on. Some providers allow you to choose your own questions to answer for verification. If you have the option, use questions and answers that you can remember but that most people wouldn’t easily be able to learn about you, such as an embarrassing childhood nickname or where you went on your first date. Shadow IT challenges security because it circumvents the standard IT approval and management process. APIs, while bridging the digital gap and enabling unprecedented integration, have brought an undercurrent of vulnerabilities.

Data Security & Data Management

As the business world has become an integral part of the digital transformation process, we’ve seen a rise in the use of cloud environments. Companies resort to cloud computing services to provide continuous workflows and storage services. The rising popularity of cloud computing services also means an increase in attack statistics as well as security vulnerabilities. It’s the responsibility of the company using cloud services to vet the service provider thoroughly and check on their compliance with the regulations before trusting the vendor with the data. It’s recommended not to leave one’s API security to the cloud service provider, since they utilize one gateway.

While the cloud can be a convenient place to store data, the report continued, it also offers multiple ways to exfiltrate it. To protect against exfiltration, organizations have begun turning to a zero-trust model where identity-based security controls are used to provide least privileged access to data. In the Cloud Security Report, organizations were asked about their major security concerns regarding cloud environments.

The 5 most significant Security Risks of Cloud Computing

With cloud-based infrastructure, a company only has partial visibility and ownership of their infrastructure, making traditional processes and security tools ineffective. As a result, 44% of companies are concerned about their ability to perform incident response effectively in the cloud. Many organizations have strategies in place for responding to internal cybersecurity incidents. Since the organization owns all of their internal network infrastructure and security personnel are on-site, it is possible to lock down the incident. Additionally, this ownership of their infrastructure means that the company likely has the visibility necessary to identify the scope of the incident and perform the appropriate remediation actions. They use the cloud to store business-critical data and to run important internal and customer-facing applications.

Because of the inherent nature of the internet and the cloud, you always leave yourself vulnerable to outside attacks. Most businesses have implemented privacy and compliance policies to safeguard their resources. Furthermore, a governance framework should define roles and responsibilities inside the business and ensure that these rules comply. With encryption, sensitive information can be safeguarded even before it leaves your company’s premises and goes to the cloud. Once your data is encrypted, you should hold on to the keys that can be used to encrypt and decrypt the data. Identity thieves and phishers purchase sensitive data like social security numbers and medical records from criminals on the dark web.

Cloud service providers promise 99.99% uptimes but they have no control over when the 0.01% downtime will occur. If it occurs during business hours that is an equivalent of 10 days in the year that one can’t process or access their data. Because the cloud aggregates data from hundreds if not thousands of businesses, one threat to one business has the potential to become a threat to all the businesses hosted by the same vendor. Hackers are not the only point of worry; the vendor’s staff can also be a potential threat if they become unscrupulous. When a vendor has access to critical data pertaining to the business operations of a company, many businesses do not have the capability to vet the vendor’s employees or their technologies and tools. In essence, the CSP administrator has administration rights over more than one customer and supports multiple services.

The unavoidable truth is that an economic downturn encourages hackers to create new kinds of threats that are unavoidable. Therefore, it can be rightly said that data safety is crucial in terms of cloud security risks. Emphasizing on cloud has its own advantages, particularly in this era of recession. As more organizations hybrid cloud security solutions business embrace cloud computing, it becomes increasingly important to understand the risks and threats that can compromise the security of cloud infrastructure. In this article, we will explore some common threats to cloud infrastructure security and provide insights into how businesses can mitigate these risks.