Cloud Visibility and Security as Obstacles in the way of Cloud Adoption
Organizations for sure want to migrate to cloud services, for it offers a plethora of benefits. It increases productivity; it is scalable and gives the flexibility to work from anywhere across the globe. But enterprises have this nagging doubt about the sensitive corporate data that will be freely available in the cloud for shared and private cloud services. As per a new survey, enterprises tend to think about where their data will be located and how it will be protected from unauthorized access and data breaches. A study on about 1000 IT decision-makers yielded the result that for sure, about 60% of their IT environment will be in public, private or hybrid clouds. Of the things concerned with cloud services deployment, 43% of respondents were worried about where the data is stored and 41% regarding its security. That doesn’t come as a surprise given the spate of data breaches that have occurred with even the big companies being the victims of such vicious attacks. But all these don’t necessarily mean that cloud services lag in security than the on-premise deployments. Organizations needing to migrate to cloud-based services face cloud visibility challenges, particularly in multi-tenant cloud environments.
Cloud Visibility Challenges for Enterprises
Cloud application vendors have indeed invested large amounts in getting right the security aspects, and thanks to it that the organizations aren’t suffering the significant hacks that many had predicted. But, the security still lacks in the challenges of getting full cloud visibility. The multi-tenant cloud environment is an area of concern, and it is difficult to intercept and inspect the data in motion. In such scenarios, even finding where the data is kept may be an issue.
The information is stored in logical pools, which are the physical storage that spans multiple servers in a cloud computing environment. With servers located in various places, pinpointing the exact portion of the stored consumer data becomes complicated even for the cloud providers. When the vendor does provide information about the location, it becomes ‘easier said than done for the customer to confirm that it is accurate. The vendors start to feel that they are taking the vendor’s word for it. It is a problem, and many vendors are taking up the challenge of cloud visibility and transparency seriously.
Role of Enterprises in Improving Cloud Visibility
The best solution on the consumer part would be to make things clear with the cloud vendor. The consumers, be it organizations or individuals, need to insist that the cloud vendors explain in detail how they operate, maintain, and secure their cloud infrastructure. If the customer is not satisfied with the cloud provider’s answers, then it is better than they look for additional sources of security. Before selecting a cloud provider, the enterprises should ask queries regarding the cloud visibility and safety of the data and the network so that there will be no challenges later.
Correct deployment of cloud security solutions like the CASB solutions always helps enterprises protect their data against unauthorized access and meet cloud visibility challenges. It is no surprise that 46% of the survey respondents thought that the cloud service provider’s security solutions have to meet their cloud compliance requirements before the cloud deployment. But the fact is that the vendors need not always share their proprietary security information, and only the big companies usually get the reports from the cloud providers.
How Can CASB Solutions Help?
Leading cloud service providers have moved ahead and started to document and certify their cloud solutions. But finally, it is up to the enterprises to evaluate their cloud service provider. Now there is a growing market of vendors providing third-party visibility, monitoring, and security services. Also, there are CASB vendors who offer solutions to help enterprises secure their data in the cloud? CASB solutions combine various techniques like IP restrictions, DLP solutions, single sign-on (SSO), etc., which not only helps in cloud visibility and security but also helps enterprises in meeting their compliance requirements. Enterprises must ask the cloud service providers information about their data and deploy CASB solutions so that their data remains safe against unwanted breaches and they need cloud visibility requirements.