A cloud application, or cloud app, is a software program where local and cloud-based components work in collaboration with each other. The framework depends upon remote servers for processing logic that retrieved via a web browser with a persistent internet connection.
Data is kept and compute cycles occur in a distant data center usually functioned by a third-party company. A back-end guarantees uptime, integration, and security and backs numerous access techniques.
According to Statista:
- The public cloud computing market was forecasted to be around $130billlion worldwide, by 2017.
- In 2018, the market is expected to grow by approximately 21.4 percent over 2017 levels.
However, the cloud security is not being focused that much. In fact, cloud security report 2016 suggested that:
- In a survey, 53% of the people considered general security risks as one of the main barriers to cloud adoption.
- Furthermore, 91 percent of the respondents were either “very concerned” or “moderately concerned” regarding cloud security.
Keeping this scenario in mind, we are presenting you five ways to improve your cloud app development process.
1. Understand Your Mutual Responsibility Framework
The enterprise is exclusively responsible for all security issues, in a private data center. However, in the public cloud, things are much more ambiguous. Although the buck eventually halts with the customer, the cloud provider undertakes accountability for a few features of IT security. Security and cloud professional call this as their “mutual responsibility framework”.
Businesses that are in view of utilizing a specific cloud vendor must analyze those vendor’s policies regarding mutual security responsibility to guarantee that they comprehend who is controlling the numerous characteristics of the security. This can assist in the prevention of misunderstandings — and the probability of security incidents that happen as a consequence of a specific security requirement falling through the cracks.
2. Conduct An In-Depth Session Regarding Security Issues With Your Cloud Provider
During this in-depth discussion session, organizations must ask their public cloud vendors the questions regarding security processes that they practice.
It is easy to undertake that the main vendors have security controlled, nonetheless security techniques and processes do fluctuate from one vendor to another. A few cloud providers have taken actions to have their security specialized by several organizations, whereas others have not. That could affect an organization’s selection of cloud vendor — predominantly for subtle workloads or for organizations with firm defiance necessities. Even though one vendor is perhaps the finest choice for mission-critical apps or individually identifiable customer data, an additional vendor is perhaps the healthier choice for less-sensitive assignments.
3. Deploy An Identity And Access Management Solution
According to CloudPassage survey 2016, people said that the two major security threats during the adoption of public cloud were:
- The hijacking of accounts 44%
- Unauthorized access 53%.
These both risks can be eliminated by employing high-quality identity and access management (IAM) solution.
Specialists suggest that companies seek for an IAM solution that permits them to outline and impose access strategies. It must also have role-based authorization competences. In addition to this, multi-factor verification can decrease the danger of unlawful people attaining access to subtle information, even if they accomplish to steal passwords and usernames.
Furthermore, organizations probably want to seek for an IAM solution that performs across their internal data centers and cloud deployments. This can abridge verification for end users, and make it easier for security staff to guarantee that they are applying rules thru all of their IT environments.
4. Train Your Staff
Spear-phishing and phishing attacks are becoming successful. This is because attackers are applying more streamlined processes. Organizations are required train all of their workforces to pinpoint dangerous email, to select strong passwords and to avoid putting the company at risk. These all steps should be taken to prevent hackers from getting passwords for cloud computing services.
Organizations are also required to capitalize on training for their security staff. The danger landscape changes on a daily basis, and IT security specialists can only keep up if they are continually learning regarding the latest threats and possible countermeasures.
5. Create and Enforce Cloud Security Policies
Organizations are required to have written recommendations that state who can utilize cloud services, the ways they can use them, and what information can be saved in the cloud. They also require to lay out the particular security equipment that employees must operationalize to safeguard data and apps in the cloud.
Preferably, security staff should have automatic solutions in place to guarantee that everyone is following these procedures. In some scenarios, the cloud vendor probably has a policy implementation feature that is adequate to meet the organization’s requirements. In others, the organization is probably required to buy separate security solutions with these policy implementation capabilities.
