Why Organizations Need a Cloud Security Assessment
The rapid adoption of cloud infrastructure in recent years has dramatically expanded organizations’ digital attack surfaces and exposure to potential cyber risk. Most companies currently operate a multi-cloud infrastructure, spreading sensitive data and important applications across multiple cloud platforms.
Each of these platforms differs significantly from the traditional on-premises data centers that organizations are familiar with and have existing tools to secure. Without control over the underlying infrastructure supporting their cloud deployments, companies have limited security visibility in the cloud and must rely on various configuration settings and security controls provided by their cloud services provider.
This combination of numerous, diverse, and complex cloud environments introduces significant cloud security threats. A cloud security risk assessment can help an organization to determine its risk exposure in the cloud and take action to remediate potential issues.
The Cloud Risk Assessment Process
A cloud security risk assessment follows a similar process to other cybersecurity risk assessments. The main steps include the following:
- Assessment: The security service provider performs an in-depth assessment of the cloud environment, collecting data regarding security configurations, installed software, and other potential factors.
- Analysis: Based on the collected data, the provider can assess an organization’s cloud security risk exposure and identify potential risks to the organization.
- Guidance: After identifying the main threats to an organization’s cloud security, the provider offers recommendations for steps that the organization can take to fix these issues, which may include steps like improving security configurations, performing updates, or deploying additional security solutions.
- Response: Based on the report and guidance provided, the organization can implement the recommended remediation steps to close security gaps and improve the security posture of its cloud environment.
Cloud Security Risk Assessment Capabilities
Ideally, a cloud security risk assessment will identify which of the various potential cloud security threats an organization is currently exposed to. Some common risks that may be identified as part of a risk assessment include the following:
- Malware Infections: Cloud-based includes virtual machines and documents that may be infected with malware. A cloud security risk assessment can help to identify if cloud infrastructure is suffering from an active malware infection.
- High-Risk Websites and Apps: Companies are increasingly hosting websites and applications in cloud infrastructure due to the numerous benefits it provides. A cloud security risk assessment can help to identify if any of these sites contain high-risk vulnerabilities that expose them to potential exploitation.
- Zero-Day Vulnerabilities: An organization can deploy multi-layer infrastructures in the cloud, including VMs, applications, and data storage. All of these may contain vulnerabilities that could be exploited by an attacker if not appropriately patched.
- Phishing Risks: Phishing attacks can be used to compromise the credentials used to manage and access cloud deployments, applications, and data. A cloud risk assessment can help to determine an organization’s exposure to these types of attacks.
- Data Loss: Cloud data breaches are a major threat due to the use of misconfigured and insecure cloud storage to hold sensitive and valuable data. Identifying configuration errors that could lead to a potential data breach is a vital part of a cloud security risk assessment.
- Bandwidth Utilization: Cloud infrastructure may have limited access to network bandwidth within the provider’s environment. Identifying vulnerabilities, threats, and errors that could consume this bandwidth is essential to ensuring the usability and cost-effectiveness of cloud infrastructure.
The desired outcome of a cloud security risk assessment is a report detailing the security risks and issues that exist in an organization’s cloud environment. This includes detailed information about findings, their relative criticalities, and recommendations for steps that companies can take to remediate them and reduce their cloud security risk exposure.
Cloud Security Assessment With Check Point
Cloud security has become an increasingly important component of many organizations’ cybersecurity strategy. As cloud adoption grows, the volume of sensitive data and important applications hosted in these environments increases, as does the complexity of effectively securing and monitoring these cloud environments.
With complex, multi-cloud environments, it’s easy for security issues to slip through the cracks. A cloud security risk assessment is a good way for an organization to identify holes in its cloud security and get useful recommendations for remediation.
Check Point offers cloud security assessments as part of its portfolio of cyber security risk assessment services. To get started on your journey to better cloud security, sign up for a no-cost Cloud Security CheckUp today.
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