Latin America. For organizations around the world, cloud-based services have become an enabler for an efficient, agile and flexible IT model that delivers significant cost savings. However, despite the benefits offered by cloud services, there are few companies that have managed to make a 100% transition to the Cloud, which is due to a large investment in local infrastructure.
While startups are fortunate to be able to get all their resources from the Cloud from the start, for established organizations that still need to work with legacy mission-critical technology, a flexible hybrid IT approach is needed that combines cloud-based services with existing traditional IT. For them, the challenge is to bring all the elements together with consistent end-to-end security.
The complexity of cloud security
Today, organizations tend to acquire multiple cloud services from multiple vendors, and not all of them have built-in high-level security. In addition, while some cloud services do have a high standard of security, the combination of different protocols makes the overall security landscape very complex and difficult to organize and manage effectively. In a context of growing cybersecurity threats, intelligence and knowledge are the only ways to combat them.
How to fix it?
A robust security environment requires constant monitoring to detect, evaluate, and mitigate potential breaches and threats. However, with cloud-based services, companies cannot control all processes. This situation makes it very difficult to detect and mitigate any security challenge.
Covering the entire cloud lifecycle is the only way to combat security threats, however, the ability to predict, detect, respond and protect will depend, to a large extent, on the choice of cloud-based service that the company makes. By choosing carefully, you will not only be protected from attacks, but you will even be able to learn new security techniques, such as encryption, data loss prevention and intelligent automated application monitoring, which can be applied to other existing services.
Therefore, any business leader should assess what to consider when looking for cloud-based services? here is the answer:
- Whether the Cloud Provider's controls meet specific compliance obligations.
- How physical security controls are addressed.
- General governance, risk and compliance controls.
- Standards and certifications.
- Data residency and data separation.
- Audit options and operational security.
- Built-in user and access management controls.
- Defined SLAs and clear responsibility.
What does all this mean for organizations?
While some companies still consider cloud services as a risk to IT security, it is only dangerous if you select the provider that does not have an adequate level of security. In reality, you can maximize the benefits of more flexible IT through the Cloud, without being exposed to attacks.
By choosing to deploy cloud services with high levels of protection, leaders can use the learnings and apply the same type of protection to their on-premises IT infrastructure. Undoubtedly, through the Cloud, erratic security is eliminated and allows new standards to be set throughout the hybrid IT environment.
By: Miguel Lomas, Director of Presales, Services and Delivery at Fujitsu Mexico
