How to prevent the biggest cloud security threat

IBM The company recently released the results of a global study , The study found that 2021 The data leakage incident in caused the average loss of these affected enterprises 424 Thousands of dollars . about IBM The company is , This is its annual survey report 17 The highest cost in years .

Network attackers are always committed to cracking the systems of enterprises and individuals and destroying and stealing data . in many instances , Employees inside the enterprise inadvertently cause data leakage or suffer network attacks .

Most enterprise data leakage events are simple misconfiguration or human error . When the security administrator or end user fails to set some security attributes correctly , That's what happens . therefore , Access to computing or storage servers in the cloud is completely open , And vulnerable to damage .

Network security service provider McAfee In a recent survey report, the company , Link the rise of cloud computing vulnerabilities to the state of multi cloud adoption . Investigation found , In recent years , nearly 70% Data compromised files for ( A total of 54 Billion bars ) It is caused by unintentional disclosure caused by incorrect cloud service configuration .

More worrying ,McAfee The company found that most of these misconfigurations were not reported , And in many cases unnoticed . This indicates that the core problem is internal personnel misconfiguration or unintentional disclosure , Vulnerable to cyber attacks . what's more , When errors are found , They are often overlooked or covered up , Because it will lead to bad public relations , Or to avoid disciplinary action .

The cause of human error in cloud security

that , What mistakes do employees make when setting up cloud security ? There are many reasons for mistakes , Here are the two most common ：

(1) Lack of training or security experience in network security

Obviously , Most inadvertent data leaks or misconfigurations and other errors can be traced back to employees' lack of understanding of how security settings work . This even includes a lack of knowledge about how to reconfigure the default security parameters , This knowledge is usually enough to prevent attacks by external intruders .

let me put it another way , Network attackers can usually bypass the default security settings created by cloud computing providers to expose data . Keep the default security parameters ( Sometimes words ) It is equivalent to using “admin” Act as a password .

This will be a persistent problem , Because there are too many vacancies that require cloud security skills , There are few qualified candidates . in many instances , The enterprise employs some people with less experience 、 Untrained employees . As a result, , Such errors will become more common .

(2) Cloud computing provider service updates quickly

Because cloud computing services are provided on demand , And cloud computing providers continue to improve their cloud computing services , Including security , Therefore, the working mode of security settings often changes . But employees often neglect to update their knowledge and software , It is usually because they are busy with other work and do not have enough time to pay attention to .

When something changes and the settings need to be updated , They will not be updated . This makes it impossible for customers to keep up with cloud computing vendors' updates to their security features and settings , And the risk of data leakage .

For example, in a data leakage event , Customers of cloud computing providers automatically opt out of encryption , Did not read and accept the agreement carefully . Hackers take advantage of the fact that most customers originally turned off encryption , They found it easy to access cloud based data .

It was suggested that , Cloud computing providers should slow down the updating of software or cloud computing services , Let the customer's security personnel keep up with their development . This approach creates a series of problems , Especially when cloud computing providers are hesitant to fix known vulnerabilities . On the contrary , Enterprises and cloud computing providers need better coordination , To better adapt to these changes .

How to prevent cloud security errors

What measures should enterprises take to avoid cloud security configuration errors and other errors that may lead to violations , The responsibility lies with the customer .

However , Cloud computing providers also need to be aware of their role in the solution . Last , More coupled coordination is needed to solve this problem .

Here are a few things that enterprises can focus on ：

(1) Peer approved configurations

Ask peers to review the security settings and confirm their correctness . This means finding another cloud security administrator to review the enterprise's security measures and ensure that nothing is missing .

Questions around this point include those that may be familiar to peers , Thus ignoring the real censorship settings . Or some ill intentioned employees may deliberately embarrass their colleagues .

(2) Automatic configuration checks and tests

A better solution is to use automatic security checks and audits to find problems with settings and other configurations , So that the staff can be completely removed from the process .

The advantage of this is , These configuration checks can be completed in less than a minute , And report directly to the person who was originally responsible for the configuration error . They can solve problems quickly , Without notifying others .

Companies can be in DevOps Many of these tools are found in the world of , Security testing is very common . This is just to DevOps The testing philosophy extends to security configurations as well as applications and data , Make sure to remove as many vulnerabilities as possible . however , Businesses must invest in tools as well as skills and training . otherwise , Eventually you will encounter the same problem that should have been solved .

What is the biggest challenge of cloud security ?

Now , The chief information security officer and the chief information officer of the enterprise have been worried about network security . However , Human error around system security is a bigger problem . For most businesses , This is a security secret , Because employees who make mistakes don't admit them , And do not report errors when they are found . These are some conclusions drawn from the above survey .

therefore , Enterprises first admit that there is a problem . Next , By identifying and understanding the core issues , Final action .