Cloud services have transformed business operations by providing scalability, flexibility, and cost savings. According to a recent poll, more than half of the organizations said they currently operate at least 41% of their workloads in the public cloud.
This trend is expected to continue and pick up speed in the future. However, the increasing use of public clouds by businesses is giving rise to new security challenges. An essential first step in protecting the digital assets of your company is to assess the security protocols of a cloud service provider.
This post will examine a number of aspects to take into account when evaluating a cloud service provider’s security.
The Top Cloud Service Provider
AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud are the three top providers of cloud infrastructure services.
- Amazon Web Services (AWS): Holding a 34% share of the worldwide market, AWS offers a range of services, such as storage, security, computation, databases, and more. This cloud platform is highly popular and dependable, making it a popular choice for e-commerce companies due to its scalability.
- Microsoft Azure: With a 21% market share, Azure provides a range of services, such as databases, computation, storage, security, and more. It is a well-liked option for companies that already use Microsoft goods because it also offers interaction with other Microsoft products.
- Google Cloud Platform (GCP): With an 11% market share, GCP provides several services, such as databases, computation, storage, security, and more. It is a popular choice for businesses looking to use artificial intelligence and data analytics because of its well-established machine-learning capabilities.
Evaluating Cloud Service Provider Security: A Checklist
1. Adherence to standards and framework
Common standards to search for are ISO-27001, ISO-27002, and ISO-27017, which signify that the supplier actively works to lower risks and adheres to security best practices. ISO-27018 is another significant standard that certifies the provider’s adequate protection of personally identifiable information. A few more legal and regulatory frameworks to take into account.
- The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) of the EU, the California Consumer Protection Act (CCPA),
- The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and
- The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS)
2. Business continuity and disaster recovery
Business continuity depends heavily on disaster recovery procedures because when corporate resources are unavailable, assets can be left vulnerable, revenue can be negatively damaged, and a company’s reputation may suffer greatly.
Examine the cloud service provider’s disaster recovery procedures during your evaluation to make sure they can manage, store, and retrieve your data in an emergency.
A disaster recovery plan’s duties, responsibilities, and procedures should all be clearly stated in your service level agreement (SLA). Teams within your organization must take responsibility for implementing some, if not all, of these processes.
3. Make sure you can access company audit trails
A record that details the day and time of particular cloud transactions is called an audit trail. In other words, it specifies who and when to perform certain tasks.
The cloud provider should provide direct access to corporate audit trail data for complete visibility and transparency. It can be difficult or impossible to gather data and put together audit trails without this kind of information.
4. Lock-in vendors and data portability
It is imperative to take into account the ease of data migration from a cloud service provider’s platform if it becomes necessary. This is referred to as data portability, and it’s a crucial factor in preventing vendor lock-in, which happens when it’s challenging to move providers for contractual or technological reasons.
Methods for Evaluating Data Portability
- Data Export Options: The provider must provide simple and safe methods for you to export your data, enabling you to switch to a different cloud service provider or, in case of necessity, return to an on-premises setup.
- Interoperability: Look for hybrid cloud storage solution providers that support open standards and APIs to make integration with other systems and services easier. This will guarantee that you have the freedom to choose between service providers if
5. Assistance and services for migration
Data migration from on-premises to the cloud is a difficult task for any corporation. Businesses can face significant costs, challenges, and security issues because they often lack the internal knowledge required to complete a transfer effectively.
Instead of depending only on internal expertise, it is beneficial to use a vendor that provides some degree of migration services.
A cloud migration consulting company’s assistance can also be beneficial to organizations to guarantee the success of their cloud strategy, architecture, migration, and optimization.
6. Be Aware of Security Service Costs
Advanced security services are available for an extra fee from many reputable cloud providers.
- For instance, GCP has the Security Command Center, and AWS offers the AWS Security Hub. These kinds of services offer threat intelligence, misconfiguration reports, centralized visibility and control, and other features.
Consult your security advisers to find out if paying for this kind of service is necessary or if using conventional tools is preferable. It could be feasible to lower the project’s overall cost and avoid having to pay hefty membership fees.
7. Verify the data storage location or locations
Examine your data’s security and privacy needs before transferring it to the cloud; in other words, classify it. This will enable you to evaluate whether the storage environment provided by the cloud provider satisfies your needs.
Furthermore, you ought to look into where the provider stores its data. In nations with lax security regulations, providers frequently retain and analyze data. This can put your private information on the cloud at risk and put you in violation of privacy laws.
Wrapping Up
Assessing a cloud service provider’s security is an important choice that shouldn’t be made hastily. Organizations that carefully consider the factors outlined in this article can lower security risks associated with cloud adoption and make well-informed decisions.
Make sure that maintaining business continuity and safeguarding sensitive data require a robust security posture.