Everything You Need To Know About Cloud Security: AWS, Azure, Oracle & Google Cloud

Before coming to the Cloud service providers, we should know some basic and facts about Cloud Security.

We all know that Cloud Security is a booming industry with a market size of 30 billion USD by 2027. And a huge job opportunity for security enthusiasts in the cloud domain.

So for a better future, keeping the present in mind, let’s dive into the ocean of knowledge.

This blog will cover topics that will teach you everything you should know about Cloud Security and its providers to be future-ready. Topics include:

• What is Cloud Computing?
• Why Cloud Security Is Important?
• What needs to be Protected and how?
  • Network Security
  • Application Security
  • Identity and Access Protection (IAM)
  • Database Security
  • Container Security
• Cloud Security Approaches
  • Shared responsibility model
  • Zero Trust Model
  • Defense in depth Model
  • Cloud-first strategies
  • Multi-Factor Authentication
  • Cloud Monitoring Solution
• Leading Cloud Service Providers in the Market
• Conclusion

let’s start with Cloud

What is Cloud Computing?

The term ‘cloud computing’ refers to the technology that makes the cloud work. This includes some form of virtualized IT infrastructure – servers, operating system software, networking, and other infrastructure that’s abstracted, using special software, so that it can be pooled and divided irrespective of physical hardware boundaries. For example, a single hardware server can be divided into multiple servers.

Before that, didn’t you thought about what is the cloud? Is it something we see in the sky or something else?

Basically, Cloud Services are applications and data hosted, run, and managed remotely, which means you don’t have to worry about the infrastructure to run your server on; Cloud Service providers will provide that you have to take their subscriptions.

Despite being controlled by major IT firms, cloud services and data hosted on remote servers aren’t safe from all forms of security threats. With over 80% of the world’s businesses relying on AWS, Azure, Google Cloud Platform, Oracle, or a combination of the four, cloud security is a critical component of data protection.

Read/know more about Cloud Fundamentals

Why Cloud Security Is Important?

Because most businesses are currently adopting cloud computing in some way or another, cloud security is crucial. With more data and apps moved to the cloud, IT professionals are concerned about security, governance, and compliance challenges. They are concerned that extremely sensitive corporate information and intellectual property could be compromised due to unintentional leaks or more sophisticated cyber assaults.

Protecting data and business content, such as financial records, is an essential aspect of cloud security. Preventing data leaks and theft is crucial for keeping your customers’ trust and safeguarding the assets that help you gain a competitive advantage. That is the reason why Cloud Security is important.

What Needs to be Protected and how?

Despite the fact that security is a significant roadblock to widespread cloud computing adoption, a group of cloud companies is doing all possible to provide information security services through securing our Network, Application, Access and Identity, Container, and database.

Network Security

The architecture of cloud security differs significantly from that of on-premise security. Whereas physical firewalls safeguard the data center perimeter, a layered approach addresses cloud security concerns. Today’s public cloud security uses four increasing protection levels, whether we’re talking about AWS cloud security, Azure cloud security, Google cloud security, or any other public cloud.

• Security Groups: Security groups provide the first layer of cloud network security protection. The security group is responsible for traffic rules.
• Network Access Control Lists (NACLs): NACLs (Network Access Control Lists) Each NACL is linked to a Virtual Private Network (VPC) or a Virtual Network (VNet). NACLs control all instances in that VPC or VNet. The centralized NACLs keep track of both allow and deny rules, making cloud security far more robust.
• Cloud Vendor Security Solution: The vendors are fully aware of the threats to cloud security and time to time, include their own solutions. For example, FWaaS- a next-generation secure internet gateway that functions as a barrier between the cloud and the internet.
• 3rd Party Cloud Security Solution: These third parties build firewalls between public clouds and the rest of the world and segment the cloud’s inner perimeter like an on-premise network.

Application Security

Cloud application security is a collection of policies, controls, and technologies that govern all data transfers in collaborative cloud environments like Microsoft Office 365, Slack, Google G Suite, and others. For example, you must store and share data in cloud apps like those mentioned above (or any other available). Therefore a cloud application “safety net” must be included in your zero-trust security infrastructure to protect your application.

Source: Microsoft.

A widespread fallacy in today’s market is that you need a proxy, browser extension, or some other agent to protect cloud apps. However, cloud security solutions that leverage the native APIs of cloud applications to monitor, manage, and secure activities within them are available. The common choices on the market are an API and a proxy CASB.

• Administrators are quickly adopting API-based cloud application security platforms (CASP) because a CASP does not require access to be routed through a broker or proxy.
• It has no impact on end-user access speed or network performance.
• CASP gives an extra layer of security to your system, unlike proxy-based solutions.

Identity and Access Protection (IAM)

IAM is a security discipline that allows the appropriate people to access the appropriate resources at the appropriate times for the appropriate reasons. IAM solves the mission-critical requirement for ensuring appropriate resource access in increasingly heterogeneous technological environments.

The following features are commonly found in cloud IAM:

• There is only one access control interface. For all cloud platform services, cloud IAM solutions provide a clear and uniform access control interface. All cloud services can be accessed through the same interface.
• Security has been improved. For important applications, you can specify a higher level of security. Access Control at the Resource Level
• Users can be assigned roles and given rights to access resources at various levels of granularity.

Database Security

Adapting to a cloud-centric infrastructure has many advantages in cost reductions, ease of setup, and time savings, but it also introduces new obstacles for IT teams. One of the most crucial is determining how to protect your cloud databases. Infrastructure and human resources go hand in hand with data security, compliance, and protection. The key is to have a solid database protection policy in place. To protect databases, you’ll need trained storage, system, and database administrators who are also familiar with data compliance regulations.

You can follow these steps to secure your database in the cloud:

• Data should be stored in multiple regions or zones.
• Data Access Control for a Cloud Database: Use Virtual Private Cloud to run your database instances in logically isolated and private cloud environments.
• Secure Data Transfer
• Hybrid Cloud Architecture with Cloud Access Control

Container Security

Source: trendmicro.

A container is a software unit that encapsulates code and all of its dependencies so that the program can be moved from one computing environment to another fast and reliably.

Traditional security tools were not meant to keep track of containers that were already running. Container security, like any other security effort, requires visibility. The containers are run by hosts, and if an attacker takes control of one, they can take control of your entire container stack.

The following are the most important considerations while securing containers:

• The container host’s security.
• Traffic on the container network.
• The container’s security for your application.
• Malicious activity within your program.
• Increasing the security of your container management stack.
• Your application’s fundamental layers.
• The build pipeline’s integrity.

Cloud Security Approaches

Cloud Computing is a vast ocean with multiple ships to sail on, but a few of the most common ships/approaches we see in cloud Security are:

• Shared responsibility model
• Zero Trust Model
• Defense in depth Model
• Cloud-first strategies
• Multi-Factor Authentication
• Monitoring

1. Shared Responsibility Model

As the name suggests, shared, which means that the security is not a sole responsibility of either yours or the cloud service provider you opted for. It’s a joint responsibility of both you and your provider to protect your environment.

Source: cloudpassage.

Here you can see a small comparison. By looking into the image above, you can see that when the application is hosted on the on-premises, the complete responsibility is of the owner, from physical security to the deployment.

And when you move towards the cloud, the responsibility is shared between you and your provider. As you can see in the IAAS Image, Microsoft manages some parts, and some will be managed by you similarly for the PAAS and SAAS. In SaaS, it’s your responsibility that while uploading any file, you are not uploading any malicious file. Although Microsoft will detect but As I said, it’s a joint responsibility of you and your provider to keep your environment secure in the cloud.

2. Zero Trust Model

The zero-trust security model, also known as perimeter less security, is a method of designing and implementing information technology systems.

Source: Microsoft.

The Zero Trust model assumes a breach and evaluates each request as if it came from an uncontrolled network, rather than thinking everything behind the corporate firewall is safe. The Zero Trust paradigm instructs us to “never trust, always verify,” regardless of where the request originates or what resource it accesses.

Zero Trust can be used by businesses to reduce cloud risk. Companies may better understand their users and devices while also recognising dangers and maintaining network control.

3. Defense-in-depth Model

Defense-in-depth is a security risk management strategy that defines many layers of security controls in an IT environment. If one tier fails to detect a security attack, the next layer will almost certainly do so. The various layers raise the environment’s total security score and drastically lower the risk of a security breach.

Security in the cloud is a shared responsibility. Each security layer is either the cloud provider’s or the customer’s responsibility. In the case of Azure:

• Physical Security: Microsoft is the owner of the Azure data centers and is in charge of physical security at all of them.
• Identity and Access: Azure Active Directory governs and controls all Azure resources.
• Perimeter: Basic Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) security is enabled by default in Azure, which includes always-on traffic monitoring and real-time mitigation of typical network-level assaults.
• Network: Network Security Groups, which contain security rules allowing or forbidding traffic, can be used to filter network traffic to and from Azure resources in a virtual network.
• Compute: The Azure Security Center’s capacity to process signals and detect security threats such as RDP brute-force attacks and SQL injections gives protection against threats.
• Application: Web Application Firewalls and Application Gateways provide centralized security for your web applications against typical attacks and vulnerabilities.
• Data: Both unstructured and structured data are encrypted at rest.

4. Cloud-first strategies

Cloud-first strategies are operational methods in which teams shift all or most of their infrastructure to cloud computing platforms such as Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, or Oracle.

Businesses can save money on software, platforms, and infrastructure by adopting a cloud-first strategy. They subscribe to a service provider who may deliver premium services at a lower cost rather than constructing their own tech stack.

The six-point strategy:

• Assessment phase: In this step, you evaluate the cost, architecture, and security implications of a cloud-first strategy.
• Proof of Concept Phase: This step involves developing and implementing a cloud-first strategy in your firm.
• Data Migration Phase: You make use of the various data storage alternatives accessible to choose the best security solution that fits your budget.
• Application Migration Phase: You must choose the form of migration to which your company will adapt.
• Leveraging the Cloud Phase: You use the capabilities and flexibility provided by cloud space to auto scale and automate your functions at this point.
• Optimization phase: The optimization phase is where you tune and improve the system to ensure that it is making the best use of available resources

5. Multi-Factor Authentication

When a user must give two or more pieces of evidence to validate their identity to obtain access to an app or digital resource, this is known as multi-factor authentication. Multi-factor authentication (MFA) is a security measure that verifies that digital users are who they claim to be.

MFA is a straightforward best practice that provides an additional degree of security to your user name and password.

6. Cloud Monitoring Solution 

Cloud monitoring refers to the practice of reviewing, monitoring, and managing operational processes in a cloud-based IT infrastructure. Manual and automated management approaches are used to check the availability and performance of websites, servers, applications, and other cloud infrastructure. This continuous evaluation of resource levels, server response times, and performance points to possible vulnerability to future threats.

The various types of cloud monitoring:

The cloud contains many moving parts, and it’s vital to make sure they all work together smoothly for optimal efficiency. This demand has resulted in a wide range of monitoring strategies tailored to the desired objective. The following are the most common types of cloud monitoring:

• Database monitoring
• Website monitoring
• Virtual network monitoring
• Cloud storage monitoring
• Virtual machine monitoring

Benefits of cloud monitoring:

• Scaling for increasing activity is simple and effective in any organization.
• The host is in charge of dedicated tools (and hardware).
• Because the tools can be utilized on various platforms, including desktop computers, tablets, and phones, your company can keep track of apps from anywhere.
• Because the infrastructure and configurations are already in place, installation is simple.
• Your system isn’t affected when local issues arise because resources aren’t part of your organization’s servers and workstations.
• Subscription-based services can help you save money.

Leading Cloud Service Providers In the Market

Cloud computing has become the IT choice in 2021, thanks to digital transformation trends spurred by remote work and the COVID-19 pandemic. Take a look at the cloud’s top players.

Amazon Web Services

AWS is the cloud services industry’s oldest (was launched in 2006), most mature, and regularly active player. AWS is heavily used by many leading firms, like Netflix, Facebook, etc., for dependable and consistent performance worldwide.

Isolation appears to be the most effective security mantra and consideration for AWS. Customers even cannot access other services unless they specifically permit access to the services they select.

Microsoft Azure

Microsoft Azure (launched in 2010 ) takes a customer-centric approach that prioritizes compatibility and efficiency. To the best possible experience and the quickest possible time to get services up and to run.

It’s alarming to see how many Microsoft Azure services default to less secure setups. Creating a new virtual network and a new virtual machine on the same virtual network is a basic example. Azure leaves all ports and protocols open during this operation, making them easily accessible. Amazon and Google both appear to start with ‘Deny’ as the default initiation point. However, Azure appears to start with ‘Allow.’

Google Cloud Platform

When it comes to cloud data and security, Google is a well-established organization. Launched in 2008, it was created from the bottom up with the most important cloud infrastructure principles, concepts, regulations, and protocols.

Developers like the centralised approach of GCP, which is similar to AWS when it comes to cloud security. Google’s management is far superior. As a result, all account Projects are initially segregated, except where developers connect services.

Oracle Cloud

Oracle Cloud is the youngest amongst four and yet has a good number of market shares and credibility in the Industry. It was launched in 2016 with a single area and core computation, storage, and networking services. Since then, Oracle Cloud has grown to include more than 70 services in 29 cloud regions across the world, with plans to expand to 38 by the end of 2021.

• Oracle Cloud Infrastructure optimizes analytics and transaction processing workloads for Autonomous databases. It’s designed from the ground up to run machine learning workloads and deliver AI-based insights, allowing customers to integrate numerous data sources and bring crucial data together to support informed business choices.
• Oracle Cloud Infrastructure is built with a security-first strategy across compute, network, and storage—right down to the hardware—to secure customer workloads. It’s backed up by vital security services to ensure the highest levels of protection for your most mission-critical applications.

Conclusion:

Cloud will become the biggest fish of the ocean, and it will be dominating the industry by 2025. There are multiple players in the ocean, with AWS the oldest, followed by GCP,  Microsoft, Oracle, etc. Cloud Security Engineers will be the rockstar of the future; as cybercrime increases, the demand for experts will go up. So it’s the best time to start diving into the security aspect of the cloud. There are multiple approaches present in the market which a cloud service provider follows, like Defense-in-depth, shared model, etc. You can start with anyone.

References

• Microsoft Azure Secure Network Connectivity: Firewall, DDOS, & NSG
•  Microsoft Azure Security Technologies: Step By Step Activity Guides 
• Microsoft Azure Security Technologies Certification
• Azure Security Center [AZ-500]: Everything You Should Know
• Top 10 best practices for Azure Security in 2021
• [AZ-500] All about Azure Active Directory
• Azure Firewall vs Azure Network Security Groups (NSG)
• Azure Firewall: Overview and Concepts
• Introduction to Azure Sentinel and Steps to Setup

Next Task For You

In this blog, we discussed Cloud Security; if you want to know more about the Microsoft Azure Security Technologies and certification. Click on the below image and Register for our FREE CLASS Now!