The challenges of accelerated cloud adoption
The sheer number of organizations moving to the cloud is staggering: we’re seeing 3-5 years-worth of business transformation happening in just months due to the pandemic. As cloud-enabled digital transformation continues to accelerate, there are a variety of concerns.
For example, the visibility of data. Organizations (and users) must assess what controls cloud services providers offer in order to understand the security risks and challenges. If data is stored unencrypted, that implies significant additional risk in a multi-tenant environment. Or what about the ability of security models to mimic dynamic behavior? Many anomaly detection and predictive “risk-scoring” algorithms look for abnormal user behavior to help identify security threats. With the sudden and dramatic shift to remote work last year, most models require significant adjustments and adaptation.
Normally, companies begin exploring the move to a cloud service provider with a detailed risk analysis assessment. This often involves examining assets, potential vulnerabilities, exploitation probabilities, anticipated breach-driven outcomes, and an in-depth evaluation of vendors’ capacity to effectively manage a hybrid solution (including authentication services, authorization, access controls, encryption capabilities, logging, incident response, reliability and uptime, etc.).
How to mitigate security risks as cloud services adoption spikes
