How to secure your SaaS?

loud security is all about the procedures and technology that secure cloud computing environments against both internal usually being insiders and external cybersecurity threat vectors. Cloud computing is the delivery of information technology services over the internet. Using it is a necessity for governments and enterprises seeking to innovate and collaborate. Security management best practices which are designed to prevent unauthorized access are necessary to keep data and applications in the cloud secure from both current and emerging cybersecurity threats.

Cloud security is different based on the category of cloud computing that is used. The four main categories of cloud computing are the following:

Public cloud services which are operated by a public cloud provider — Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) are all part of this.

Private cloud services which are operated by a public cloud provider — These services provide a computing environment dedicated only to one customer which is operated by a 3rd party.

Private cloud services which are operated by internal staff — These services are the evolution of the traditional data center environment where internal staff operate a virtual environment that they control.

Hybrid cloud services — Private and public cloud computing configurations can all be combined, having the ability to host workloads and data based on optimization factors like cost, security, operations and access. Operations will involve internal staff and can have personnel from the public cloud provider.

Whilst using a cloud computing service provided by a public cloud provider, all data and applications are hosted with a 3rd party, marking a fundamental difference between cloud computing and your traditional IT setup, where data was held within a fully self-controlled network. Having a complete understanding of your security responsibility and architecture is the first step to building a successful cloud first security strategy.

The majority of cloud providers try to create a cloud that is secure for their customers. It is crucial that they prevent breaches in order to maintain public and customer trust. Cloud providers cannot control how their customers use their service in terms of what data they add to it or who has access to it. Customers can weaken cybersecurity in the cloud with their configuration, sensitive data, and access policies, however Zero Trust persistent authentication like SAASPASS mitigates such issues. In each public cloud service category, the cloud service provider and cloud service customer share different levels of responsibility and accountability for security. The service types are the following:

SaaS (Software-as-a-service) — Customers are responsible for securing their own data and user access.
PaaS (Platform-as-a-service) — Customers are responsible for securing their own data, user access and applications.
IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-service) — Customers are responsible for securing their own data, user access, applications, operating systems and their virtual network traffic.

Within all categories of public cloud services, customers are responsible for securing their data and controlling who can access that data. The security of data within cloud computing is fundamental to have successful adoption and harness the benefits of the cloud. Organizations which consider adopting SaaS offerings such as SalesForce or Microsoft Office 365 are in need of planning on how they will fulfill their shared responsibility to protect their data in the cloud. Those considering IaaS offerings like AWS (Amazon Web Services) or Microsoft Azure need a much more detailed plan that starts with data, also covering cloud app security, operating systems and virtual network traffic which can also introduce the potential for data security issues arising.

As data in the public cloud is stored by a 3rd party and accessed over the internet, the following challenges arise in the ability to maintain a secure cloud:

Visibility into cloud data — Cloud services are accessed outside of the corporate network usually from devices not managed by IT. The IT team needs the ability to see into the cloud service itself to have full visibility over data, as opposed to the traditional means of being able to monitor network traffic.

Having control over cloud data — In a 3rd party cloud service provider’s environment, IT teams have less access to data than when they are controlling servers and applications on their own premises. Cloud customers are given limited control and thus access to underlying physical infrastructure is not possible.

Accessing cloud data and applications — Users can access cloud applications and data over the internet, making access controls based on the traditional data center network perimeter no longer effective. User access can be from any location or device, including BYOD (Bring-Your-Own-Device) technology.

Compliance — Cloud computing services implementation adds another dimension to regulatory and internal compliance. Your cloud environment may need to adhere to regulatory requirements such as HIPAA, PCI and Sarbanes-Oxley as well as requirements from internal teams, partners and global customers.

Cloud-native breaches — Data breaches in the cloud, unlike on-premises breaches, occur using native functions of the cloud. A Cloud-native breach is a series of actions by an adversarial actor in which they deploy their attack by exploiting errors or vulnerabilities in a cloud deployment without the use of malware in order to expand their access through weakly configured or protected interfaces to locate valuable data and exfiltrate that data to their own storage location.

Misconfiguration — Cloud-native breaches often fall to a cloud customer’s responsibility for security, which includes the configuration of the cloud service. The majority of companies cannot currently audit their IaaS environments for configuration errors. Misconfiguration of IaaS often acts as the front door to a Cloud-native breach, allowing the hacker to successfully deploy and then move on to expand and exfiltrate data. 99% of misconfigurations go unnoticed in IaaS by cloud customers.

Disaster recovery — Cybersecurity planning is needed to protect against the negative effects of significant data breaches. A disaster recovery plan includes policies, procedures and tools designed to enable the recovery of data allowing an organization to continue operations.

Insider threats — A rogue employee is capable of using cloud services to expose an organization to a cybersecurity breach.

In conclusion, more than a quarter of organizations worldwide have experienced a serious data breach and almost 100% of organizations worldwide use cloud services today. It is critical that everyone evaluates their cloud security and develops a strategy to protect their data. SAASPASS helps achieve this security by securing access. Zero Trust means Zero Breach!