By Abhi Singh

 

Overview

Customers are migrating to Public Cloud (Azure, AWS, Google Cloud) often doing lift and shift with their existing toolset. Or in many cases customers have a misleading notion that a best of breed approach is better than using Cloud Native solutions. As a result, their cloud workloads suffer from security and efficiency gaps. 

 

These 3^rd party solutions rely on the visibility provided by CSPs APIs. However, each solution comes with its own set of limitations/blind spots as a result, customers’ security becomes a combination of these blind spots. Making it harder for security engineers and analyst to triage and respond to threats.

 

We will use Microsoft Azure (Azure) to demonstrate the advantages.

Understanding  your attack surface

When transitioning to a public cloud platform such as Azure, the security attack surface undergoes a significant transformation. The attack surface expands as organizations relinquish some control over their infrastructure to cloud service providers.

 

In the cloud, various entry points, including virtual networks, APIs, and web interfaces, expose potential vulnerabilities. Misconfigurations in cloud settings, inadequate access controls, and insecure application designs can be exploited by malicious actors. The defense strategy should as a result must evolve from a harder shell – softer core to a capable layered defense where each layer operates independently.

 

Additionally, shared responsibility models (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/security/fundamentals/shared-responsibility) necessitate careful consideration of security responsibilities between the cloud provider and the customer.

 

While cloud providers like Azure offer robust security measures, organizations must actively manage their configurations, monitor for potential threats, and enforce stringent access controls to mitigate the widened attack surface and safeguard sensitive data and applications in the cloud.

 

Read the full post here: Native-first cloud security approach