Today, every company must have a digital security plan in place that addresses the various threats and cyberattacks. When it comes to securing your hybrid cloud environment, there are several factors to consider. The most important of which is cost. If you’re like most companies, you probably don’t have the budget for an extensive IT security program. But even with a small staff and a limited amount of resources, your company should still have a strong security strategy in place.
A secure hybrid cloud environment should be one part of that strategy, as it can make it harder for cybercriminals to access sensitive data and carry out attacks on other environments. However, securing your hybrid cloud environment comes with unique challenges, given the complex nature of such an environment that encompasses both on-premises and cloud-based resources.
Hacking into your private or public cloud accounts in a hybrid cloud security context isn’t as easy as just clicking a button, especially if those accounts are operated by different companies and vendors. In this blog post, we’ll walk you through some of the different challenges that come with securing your hybrid cloud environment and how you can overcome them using software such as Azure IoT Suite.
What are the Challenges in Securing Hybrid Clouds?
Controlling access to critical objects and data within a hybrid cloud environment is essential to achieving a secure environment. This includes things such as managing user accounts and passwords, enforcing access control, monitoring for threats, and more. Unfortunately, many companies don’t have a clear view of where their data and assets are located within their hybrid cloud environments.
This can lead to a communication challenge when it comes to securing access to sensitive information. For example, one company’s cloud may house your email account, but another company’s cloud may host your work email account. If IT security team members don’t know where to look, they might spend too much time trying to log into two separate accounts. This could prove to be a security risk in a hybrid cloud environment.
How to secure your Hybrid Cloud Environment
On one level, securing your hybrid cloud environment is similar to securing your on-premises or cloud-based environment. You need to create a policy that determines who has access to what types of data and objects within the cloud environment and enforce it using security policies defined on the azure IoT Suite platform. You can also use the azure IoT Suite mobile app to create and manage security policies.
Secure Communication in a Hybrid Cloud Environment
One of the primary goals of any security program is to keep sensitive data and assets out of the hands of unauthorized parties. This includes communication within your organization, between departments, and even between clouds. It’s important to keep communication channels within your organization secure, such as those between employees, customers, and vendors.
Implementing this measure can prevent the sharing of sensitive data outside of your organization and can also improve the organization and transparency of your company’s cybersecurity efforts. Communication channels can be physical or virtual, such as messaging services such as email or Slack. You should consider using stronger encryption standards for sensitive communications, such as the “Advanced Encryption Standard” (AES) or the “RC4” encryption standards.
Cloud Storage Management in a Hybrid Cloud Environment
When you’re managing multiple clouds, it’s often difficult to know which account contains what data. This can lead to confusion and incomplete information when it comes time to report a threat. The solution? Create a dedicated hybrid cloud security team that reports directly to the owner of the hybrid cloud. This can help standardize the process and speed up the response time when a threat is discovered.
Virtualized Environments in a Hybrid Cloud Environment
When you have multiple clouds to manage, it’s often easier to control access to data and objects within them manually. However, when you use a hybrid cloud environment, you should consider installing access control software that can help automate the process. For example, you can use the azure IoT Suite platform to create and manage user accounts, assign roles, and enforce access controls for specific IoT devices. You can then use the platform to manage which devices get access to which accounts and which data is available to which devices.
Conclusion
Fortunately, implementing security policies and encrypting data can help mitigate many of the threats associated with hybrid cloud environments. From securing your own private cloud to protecting data in your public or hybrid cloud environment, it’s important to have a strategy in place. You should also remember to keep communication channels secure, including those between departments and between clouds.