Multi-cloud security is a robust cloud security solution that safeguards customer/ enterprise data, applications, and assets from advanced cyberattacks and security risks over multiple cloud environments.
A multi-cloud technique helps organizations create a fast infrastructure that optimizes app performance while reducing the cost of integrating cloud solutions with their existing IT infrastructure.
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While multi-cloud infrastructures promise more scalability and flexibility, ensuring multi-cloud security can be difficult.
5 Major Challenges of Securing Multi-Cloud Environments
Discussed below are five major challenges of securing multi-cloud environments.
1. Unauthorized access
Unauthorized access involves individuals accessing an organization’s cloud resources like applications and data without permission. Cloud resources aren't predictable and static anymore, and since enterprises are now adopting multi-cloud strategies to their infrastructure, establishing proper access permissions to these resources is no longer easy.
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Misconfigured or broken authentication systems are the primary cause of unauthorized access. Other unauthorized access causes include:
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Compromised accounts
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Weak passwords
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Insider threats
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Social engineering attacks
If attackers successfully gain unauthorized access to enterprise resources, they can destroy/ steal private data. In addition, these cybercriminals can compromise systems and utilize them for criminal activities.
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Successful data breaches occasioned by unauthorized access may result in long-term consequences, such as disruption of business continuity and trust/ reputation damage.
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With the help of CIEM (cloud infrastructure entitlement management), you can address this challenge. Other practices like instituting a strong password policy and monitoring user activity can also help.
2. Visibility difficulties
The multi-cloud environment's complexity leads to visibility difficulties. Improper visibility hampers monitoring of cloud resources for issues like security. Its effects of this involve costs getting out of control and more significant security threats. Many cloud service providers provide integrated management and monitoring tools.
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However, the tools don't offer default access to each cloud computing layer. Other providers provide managed services that cause abstraction in the underlying infrastructure.
These issues make gaining visibility into connected devices' behavior and performance complex. Cloud providers usually provide built-in monitoring, which might not offer granular logging or complete visibility. Find a unified cloud monitoring solution compatible with your platforms to attain full visibility into your multi-cloud environment.
3. Complexity
Handling multiple cloud providers isn't easy, and the environment's complexity increases as your cloud providers' list increases. Managing security across multi-cloud environments requires proper planning, using the right tools, and a robust cloud security strategy.
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Your strategy should contain technical controls, procedures, and policies to secure and manage data across several cloud providers. The strategy must also consider:
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Access control
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Compliance requirements
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Encryption
4. Data protection difficulties
Safeguarding data in multi-cloud infrastructures can be difficult. Since data is deployed across several cloud providers, ensuring the data is always protected becomes a challenge.
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Implementing encryption can help secure data in transit and at rest. You can apply encryption to data kept in the cloud, on-premise, and in transit between providers. This lowers data breach risk and ascertains sensitive information is protected.
5. Shared responsibility model
Securing cloud infrastructures in multi-cloud environments needs robust knowledge of the shared responsibility model. While cloud providers have detailed sharing responsibilities between them and their clients clearly, businesses experience multiple difficulties that make it difficult to implement and manage their security responsibilities' share effectively.
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The lack of clarity around the shared responsibility model and inadequate cloud expertise in enterprises create security gaps and raise data breach risks. To ascertain robust cloud security in multi-cloud environments, understand and effectively manage shared responsibility.
Endnote
Ensuring multi-cloud environment security can be challenging. Understand the major challenges of securing multi-cloud environments and how to resolve them.