The cloud is everywhere. Every software as a service, your data backups, and even your website itself, is all stored “on the cloud”. While technically, yes, every cloud account is a team of servers in different locations, the effect is still the same. You have data spread out across accounts, servers, and businesses.
This is a risk.
The more locations you have data, the easier it is to lose track of it. Lose track of it, and suddenly you have ROT or dark data. Not familiar with those terms? ROT stands for redundant (duplicates), outdated (and no longer needed) or trivial (unimportant) data. Dark data is simply data you aren’t sure is valuable or ROT. Then there’s shadow data, the data you don’t even know you have.
You need to keep a tight leash on your data to keep it secure. This means purging what you don’t need and locking down what you do. With that in mind, here are the top first steps to take to secure your cloud accounts.
Understand the Fundamentals in Cloud Security
Cloud security can be a bit complicated because there are protections offered automatically on the provider’s side, and then there’s what you can and should do to increase the security from there.
Cloud data security is a combination of CIA (confidentiality, integrity, and availability), data loss protection features, encryption, access control, prevention systems, and more. Being familiar with all of these concepts will help you best understand where your responsibilities come into play and how to start securing your cloud data on your end.
User Roles and Access
For example, one of the security steps that must be taken is entirely your responsibility, and that’s to create clear-cut roles and access identities. Junior level roles only need access to the data they need in their day-to-day operations. Managers will need greater access. CEOs may need full access.
It’s easier to add additional protections for the fewer high-ranking accounts than every account. The reason you’ll need to define each role and the files it has access to is simple:
- It prevents internal breaches
- It limits external breaches
Zero-Trust Security
Limiting user access will contain a breach if it happens, but that isn’t the only way you can protect your cloud data. By adopting zero trust security protocols you can:
- Prevent logins from unauthorized IP addresses
- Flag suspicious behaviour
- Require continuous authentication, limiting potential breach windows
- Enforce least-privilege access
- Log every action for review
Use DSPM to Clean Up Your Data
Now that access is limited, it’s time to clean up the data and its access permissions. One of the fastest and easiest ways that you can do this is by using a data security posture management tool. These tools work to find all data in your cloud or on-prem servers and classify it based on sensitivity. They can also make it easier for you to revoke unneeded access, improve file-by-file encryption, and even delete unnecessary duplicates.
Stay Updated
Every cloud and SaaS system is different. To really improve your cloud security, you need to read every update that each provider pushes out and be ready to react. New tools and cloud security guidance recommendations arise all the time. Make sure you are always using the best of the bunch.
