Multi-cloud and security challenges

76% of organisations are implementing the cloud or already operating in it. And no wonder: Cloud can do great things for your organisation. It can provide increased data storage capacity, improved business continuity, and potential cost reduction. However, using the cloud brings significant security risks with it, including data loss and threats to data privacy.

Once your data is up in the cloud, you might think that makes it immune to attack. But the fact is that cloud-based data is highly vulnerable; it's relatively easy to attack cloud-based applications (which are often undefended) - particularly those in a development environment.

To put it simply, there are potential holes in the cloud infrastructure that a determined hacker can use as entry-points to access your data. You only have to look at the numerous high-profile data breaches in the news, including the recent iCloud leak, to appreciate the extent of the problem.

So how are organisations combatting these potential risks? Generally speaking, by using a multi-cloud environment. Instead of putting all of their eggs in one basket, they spread their data across multiple cloud environments.

Problem solved! Well, not exactly…

Putting your eggs in different baskets: is it all it's cracked up to be?

Unfortunately, it's not always that simple. Multiple clouds spread data across multiple environments, so that there's not one 'easy target' - but using more than one cloud environment also means more than one cloud to protect. This creates a chicken/egg problem – multiple clouds increase data security, but you have to increase data security in order to protect multiple clouds!

No need to run around like a headless chicken, though: there is a way to do this. Bearing in mind that what you don't know can hurt you, the keyword is: visibility. When you have data in multiple cloud environments, you want to be able to see all of those environments, all of the time, all at once.

And guess what? This creates more problems.

Looking at the bigger picture

Monitoring several clouds at once can be extremely tricky, particularly if your security tools aren't fit for purpose. And the chances are, they aren't. As workloads are moved to the cloud, many organisations are realising that the traditional security tools they have are not designed for the challenges that come with cloud adoption, including multi-cloud monitoring.

For example, you can put firewalls in place to protect your individual cloud environments, but that won't give you a good view of your security estate as a whole. You'll also be forced to log into numerous different applications to keep an eye on things.

What's really required to protect cloud-based data is strong security Monitoring and control solutions designed specifically for the cloud. Solutions that will bring all your cloud security under a single umbrella, giving you an at-a-glance overview of your entire cloud estate.

Once you do this, you'll be able to make truly informed decisions to help protect your data.

Managed service providers: eye in the sky

So we've established that it's important to bring your entire cloud security estate under one umbrella so that you can see and monitor it all. But how can this be done?

The solution is to put in place strong managed security monitoring and alerting across all your cloud networks. By doing this, specific policies for applications, clouds and data traffic can be managed and monitored from a single screen, allowing for greater control over security, and a higher level of security in general.

As a provider of managed security monitoring and alerting, Exponential-e is able to monitor all of your clouds at once, taking alerts from and providing analysis on them. This allows your organisation to react to potential threats in an informed, quick, and effective way.
Our platform can support your entire security estate, regardless of where it is and how big it is. And with cross-cloud monitoring, we'll spot any threats to your data security in time to combat them.