Modern businesses are increasingly adopting a hybrid cloud model, rather than choosing between public and private. This is for good reason, as a hybrid model carries many benefits. However, it also drastically increases the risk involved. The more complex your cloud environment is, the harder it is to protect. And given its integration with the rest of your IT infrastructure, a breach here could endanger your entire business.
One thing is clear: to effectively manage such an environment, you must implement strong hybrid cloud security. But how? When your IT infrastructure has so many moving parts, how could you possibly hope to defend it?
What Is a Hybrid Cloud Model?
A hybrid cloud model combines elements of both public and private environments, often alongside your existing on-premises infrastructure. This approach is favoured by many businesses for one simple reason: it allows you to pick and choose the best elements of each setup, while shifting workloads to avoid the impact of their biggest failings. Using hybrid cloud, you can enjoy:
- The security and control offered by private cloud
- The flexibility and accessibility of public cloud
- The stability and predictability of on-premises infrastructure
For example, you might store sensitive data in the more secure private cloud, while using the public one for less critical workflows. In this scenario, on-premises storage may provide additional redundancy in case a random error erases your cloud data. It is easy to see how this model offers greater efficiency, security, business continuity, and peace of mind.
However, every technology solution comes with challenges. And the hybrid cloud model is no different.
Why Hybrid Cloud Security Matters
The disturbing reality every business must face is that they are in constant danger from cyber-attacks. Potential threats are everywhere, and only grow stronger by the day. While a hybrid cloud model is one solution, it can also be part of the problem.
Here are some reasons why hybrid cloud security solutions are essential:
The Price of Flexibility
A hybrid cloud provides your business with unparalleled flexibility to store data, collaborate on projects, and organize workflows. But mixing environments also significantly complicates the issue of security. Each additional service you introduce is another you must shield from threat actors. You might also be using several different cloud service providers (CSPs), each with their own security standards. Over time, it can become almost impossible to track your various cloud environments and the security measures implemented for each.
The Constant Pressure of Compliance
Recent years have seen an enormous shift in public opinion towards data security, particularly in light of emerging technologies and thousands of major breaches. In fact, 86% of Americans have expressed serious concerns about how their personal information is stored and used by businesses. In response, governments across the globe have slowly and steadily tightened their data protection regulations. Many have introduced entirely new clauses, stating that any business operating within their country – regardless of country of origin – is subject to the new rules.
This has made compliance more complex than ever before, and simultaneously much more important. Failure to properly protect the sensitive data of individuals could leave you at the mercy of audits, lawsuits, and harsh fines. Worse still, it is no longer enough to know your own laws. If you operate internationally in any capacity (even something as simple as shipping packages to other countries), you must also follow theirs.
The Evolution of Security Threats
No longer content with mass phishing emails that many employees can spot a mile away, threat actors are using new methods to access business data. As the cloud becomes more popular, they are rising to the challenge with new attack methods designed to compromise the security measures put in place by CSPs. In order to stop them, your defenses will need to become stronger.
The Importance of Business Continuity
Downtime can cost your business thousands of dollars per minute, depending on your size and IT needs. And this is only the immediate expense of lost productivity while waiting for systems to come back online. If downtime is extended or reoccurring, you risk losing the trust of your clients. When this happens, the long-term consequences can be crippling. Once your reputation as a trusted entity has been damaged, it may be almost impossible to recover.
For these reasons, it is essential to maintain business continuity whenever possible. This means you must avoid cyber-attacks. A single breach could halt operations for hours or even days, while you attempt to isolate and remove the threat. Such a long period of downtime may be more than your organization can afford.
Who Is Responsible for Cloud Security?
There is a common misconception that security responsibilities belong solely to the CSP, and businesses using the cloud do not need to do anything. This isn’t true. In reality, cloud environments operate under a shared responsibility model. Each party must do their part to protect the IT infrastructure from threats.
This becomes even more important when using a hybrid model, which combines public and private cloud environments with on-premises infrastructure. Remember that a given CSP is only ever responsible for the specific service they provide. Any other cloud services, along with your own infrastructure, do not fall within their scope. This may mean your shared responsibility model involves coordinating multiple CSPs at once.
Cloud Provider Responsibilities
Generally speaking, your CSP is responsible for:
- Infrastructure Security: Their physical data centers, hardware, storage, and networking components.
- Platform Maintenance: Ensuring that their services are regularly updated, and that redundancy exists where necessary.
- Availability Guarantees: Your CSP’s service level agreement (SLA) should outline their guaranteed uptime. If systems are shut down on their end, it will be their responsibility to fix the issue within that time frame.
Customer Responsibilities
You, the user, are responsible for:
- Data Protection: Managing access controls, encrypting data (your CSP may provide some basic encryption, but you should always implement your own), and otherwise protecting sensitive assets.
- Access and Identity Management: The configuration of secure authentication practices, and role-based access.
- Application Security: Securing any applications, containers, and workloads that run on top of the cloud infrastructure (for example, when using Microsoft 365, you are responsible for securing the applications you use).
You will also need to integrate your various environments, so that data can travel freely between them, while also ensuring that each connection remains secure.
Misunderstanding hybrid cloud security, and simply assuming it is not your responsibility, can lead to serious vulnerabilities that don’t get addressed properly. In turn, this may result in a data breach or other cyber-attack. If you are unsure of your responsibilities, it is crucial to clear this up with your providers.
Common Hybrid Cloud Security Challenges
There are several factors that make cybersecurity uniquely challenging when using hybrid cloud:
Visibility Gaps
It can be difficult to monitor for threats across public and private environments. Without centralization and control, many vulnerabilities and potential attacks remain undetected.
The Human Element
Neglecting updates, failing to properly configure cloud services, or applying policies inconsistently can all put your organization at risk. Errors are more likely to be made when using a hybrid model, due to the number and variety of services involved.
Identity and Access Management (IAM) Complexity
One major benefit of a hybrid model is the ability to implement different levels of security across each environment. However, this can also become a risk factor due to varying IAM practices. Data moving across the IT infrastructure and simple human error can both undermine the security of your private cloud.
Easy Lateral Movement
Cloud services can provide an easy attack vector for threat actors, who will then travel across the entire organization through the company network (or even other cloud services, depending on integration). Efforts must be made to prevent this.
Skill Gaps
Successfully securing a hybrid environment can require a high level of knowledge, depending on the complexity involved. Most staff will not have this, unless they have previous experience working under similar conditions, potentially resulting in unaddressed vulnerabilities.
Building a Hybrid Cloud Security Framework
While many businesses choose to use pre-built hybrid cloud security frameworks, you can also build your own. Frameworks are essential, as they provide direction that will guide your efforts and keep everyone on track.
When designing your hybrid cloud security framework, consider:
Governance and Policy Alignment
- Scope and Inventory: Consider the number of cloud environments you have, and which types they are, will be essential for establishing solid policies.
- Regulations: All governance must align with your business’ regulatory needs.
- Unification: Think about which policies would be helpful across all cloud environments.
Identity and Access Management (IAM)
- Roles and Responsibilities: Who needs access to each cloud environment? Remember to take into account that there may be overlap, or employees who need access to some environments but not others.
- Tracking and Authentication: How will you detect and prevent unauthorized access attempts?
- Onboarding: When onboarding new employees, how will you determine what level of access they should have?
Data Protection
- At Rest: How will data be stored? How will this storage be secured?
- In Transit: Data that is in transit faces unique risk factors, and will require additional protection.
- Privacy Controls: How will IAM be set and enforced on sensitive data?
- Compliance: Your data security measures must reflect the regulatory requirements you are subject to.
Visibility, Monitoring, and Analytics
- Monitoring: Consider the resources you have available, and how you will effectively monitor systems within these constraints.
- Detection: What is the process that will take place when a potential threat is detected? Think about how real dangers will be distinguished from false alarms, and what the initial response will be.
- Assessments: Define how often assessments will occur, and which metrics will be used to determine success or failure of your hybrid cloud security.
Incident Response and Recovery
- Isolation and Removal: Decide how threats will be isolated and removed from company systems in a timely manner.
- Communication: Identify when it is appropriate to communicate information about a breach, to whom, and using which channels.
- Recovery: Determine your desired recovery time, and how you will achieve it.
- Planning: How will you ensure that everyone in the workplace understands what to do in an emergency?
Hybrid Cloud Security Best Practices
You may have your framework, but that is only half the battle. Step two is putting it into practice. Use these hybrid cloud security best practices to get ahead:
MFA, Least Privilege, and Zero Trust
Access control is a crucial part of hybrid cloud security, especially given that so many different environments are in play. Implement:
- The Principle of Least Privilege: Dictates that staff may only access accounts or data that they actually need.
- Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA): Prevents unauthorized access by requiring a second form of verification before allowing users into sensitive accounts.
- Zero Trust Architecture: Operates under the assumption that any access attempt could be malicious, and requires verification every single time.
Network Segmentation
Segmentation is the act of breaking your network down into smaller, more manageable chunks. This is typically done to make them easier to separate if something goes wrong. While integration is important to ensure smooth workflows while using hybrid cloud, you must also consider what happens if one is breached. Segmentation makes it easier to prevent lateral movement, trapping threat actors in one part of your IT infrastructure.
Encryption
Data encryption is one of the most important things you can do to improve security for hybrid cloud environments. This technique turns data into an unreadable format, making it useless to anyone without the correct decryption key. Any data that is stored in, or moves through, your cloud environments should be encrypted at all times.
Automation
Many cybersecurity tasks can be automated, which may help you overcome skill and staffing gaps. One particularly useful tool is behavioral analytics. This solution scans all actions taken within your organization, recognizes patterns, and detects any deviations. This allows your team to identify potential threats far earlier than if they were acting alone.
Vetting Vendors
Do not ever assume that your CSP has security under control. Vet out any vendors you use, to ensure that they are prioritizing your safety and following hybrid cloud security best practices. It is also important to perform regular assessments to ensure they have not slipped. A single weakness on their end could endanger your business.
Training
All staff should receive regular training in hybrid cloud security, to ensure they maintain best practices and can identify threats. Perform at least one comprehensive session each year, and sprinkle short refresher courses throughout.
Assessments
Assessments should be performed on a regular basis, to ensure that your security posture remains strong and any vulnerabilities have been addressed. Without this step, your defenses may slip over time.
Should You Outsource Hybrid Cloud Security?
Smaller businesses are often unequipped to handle hybrid cloud security on their own, due to their limited resources and expertise. Managed service providers (MSPs) and cloud consultants are becoming a popular way to solve this problem, allowing internal staff to focus on their own work while external experts maintain and advise on cloud environments.
Why Organizations Outsource Hybrid Cloud Security
- Specialized Expertise: MSPs hire experts in a variety of fields, bringing expertise to the table that would otherwise be out of reach for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs).
- 24/7 Monitoring: Outsourcing provides your organization with 24/7 threat monitoring and response, reducing your risk of experiencing a breach.
- Improved Compliance: MSPs have in-depth knowledge of local regulations, and can help you maintain a higher level of compliance.
- Cost Efficiency: Outsourcing hybrid cloud security to a third party is far cheaper than attempting to handle it in-house. This is because they leverage economies of scale.
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The Challenges of Outsourcing Security in Hybrid Cloud
While partnering with an MSP provides many benefits, there are also challenges to consider:
- Loss of Visibility: While a good provider will stay in close contact with you, outsourcing inherently reduces visibility to some extent. You must be able to trust them to fulfill their role properly.
- Coordination: Coordinating your internal and external teams may be difficult without the correct preparation.
- Vendor Lock-In and Integration: Some providers use proprietary tools that may not integrate easily with hybrid infrastructure. It is important to ensure that your partners support the solutions you use.
Best Practices for Outsourcing
- Do Your Due Diligence: Before choosing a provider, carefully evaluate their certifications and prior experience.
- Review Service Level Agreements (SLAs): Ensure that their SLAs support your needs.
- Foster Communication: Maintain open, transparent communication on your end, and make it clear that you expect the same from them.
- Maintain Strong Governance: Outsourcing to a third party does not remove all responsibility from you. Maintain robust governance, and regularly review your hybrid cloud security.
- Don’t be Afraid to Switch: If your current MSP no longer meets your needs, remember that switching to a new one is always an option.
Secure Your Hybrid Cloud and Ensure a Safer, More Efficient Future
Hybrid cloud architecture offers better agility, scalability, and customisability – but it also introduces more risk. Strong security measures are essential to reduce your risk of cyber-attacks, protecting your business and clients. Using a solid framework as your guide, implementing hybrid cloud security best practices, and outsourcing where necessary, you cannot go wrong. These strategies will allow you to ensure a safer, more efficient future.
ION247’s cloud experts understand why you cannot afford to sacrifice security. Our experience with all cloud environments enables us to help secure your business, no matter what setup you use. If you’d like to discuss your needs, and find out whether we can meet them, speak to a cloud consultant today.
