Automation is your cloud protection keystone

RISING RISKS

Organizations that take the easy route of cloud adoption by lifting and shifting apps and data frequently use manually configured security policies.

The sheer complexity and heterogeneous nature of multi-cloud make it challenging to avoid inadvertent human errors in configuring security policies. Downsides to such glitches are aplenty—security blind spots, risk of data theft, ransomware attacks, and the need to pay hefty compliance penalties.

AUTOMATE TO SECURE

Automating cloud security configurations and policies helps your security team focus its time on proactive security rather than reacting to an incident.

Automation can be task-based, policy-driven, or cognitive. Task-based automation eliminates the need for manual security assessment and reporting. Organizations can create data classification policies without errors and in quick turnaround times.

Policy-driven automation helps organizations define, share, and enforce enterprise-wide security policies. This allows enterprises to overcome human errors in granting access and ensures proper reporting of incidents.

Cognitive threat management helps enterprises leverage machine learning algorithms to flag anomalies, detect risky user behavior, classify potential security incidents, and perform remediation automatically.

ACCELERATE QUICK WINS 

Here are eight actionable insights to simplify and secure your cloud automation journey. 

• Identify the scope: To minimize critical security errors, you can automate several manual processes such as application risk management, maturity assessment, and migration path mapping.

• One-click enforcement: Automating the entire policy development life cycle can transform several tenets of application development, such as version control, testing, and deployment. Start by codifying policy definitions to ensure consistent and continuous security policy enforcement across platforms with a single click. 

• Embrace automation at scale: If you use migration factories for large-scale cloud migration, ensure the underlying DevOps pipelines are designed for security with a scope to embed automation. 

• Bolster IAM with zero trust: Leverage zero trust approach to elevate IAM security by weaving in automated identity protection, cross-cloud entitlement management, and granular security controls.

• Embed machine learning: Organizations already using a solution to suppress false positives in threat detection can extend their capabilities by adding machine learning and user behavior analytics (UBA). You can automate threat feed, analysis, and SOAR (security orchestration automation and response) to improve  defense.

• Secure the data across its life cycle: Build robust data security measures by leveraging agile processes to automate threat identification, protection, data classification, and governance.

• Define the baseline and monitor compliance: Bolster your governance, risk, and compliance programs by automating the definition, assessment, analysis, monitoring, and reporting.

• Enhance remediation efforts: Reduce misconfiguration errors by leveraging intelligent tools, technologies, and processes to fortify the data security life cycle and remediate incidents faster.

ROADMAP FOR CLOUD SAFETY

For cloud automation to be effective, you must give equal weight to process, policy, and technology. Otherwise, you could run the risk of building an unmanageable technology stack. 

It’s crucial to maintain proper cyber hygiene by performing thorough cleanup before automating. Additionally, the cloud, infrastructure, and security teams should work together to eliminate information silos and stay focused on a common goal.

Lastly, it would help to establish processes for continuous governance of their automation efforts. Such methods ensure that your IT teams catch any discrepancies or redundant technologies early in the cycle, thereby keeping the automation efforts effective, seamless, and practical.