For those organisations undecided about migrating their applications and workloads to the cloud, the most common cause for delay is the fear of perceived security weaknesses and potential data leakage.
With cloud adoption continuing to rise post-pandemic, such organisations must be mindful that failure to adopt may result in a reduced competitive edge and costly and labour-intensive efforts around maintaining infrastructure security and ensuring legal compliance.
Security and compliance are, of course, the main priorities when it comes to accessing and managing data and ensuring business continuity, so it is only right that due diligence is given to how and where organisations store it, thereby managing their exposure and risk.
In this article, we examine the security advantages that migrating applications to Amazon Web Services (AWS) presents to answer some of the questions around cloud adoption and perceived vulnerabilities to help clarify and inform your IT strategies.
A robust and strategic approach to IT infrastructure security and the cloud
As the technology environment continues to evolve, so too does the threat to your data, with ever more refined and sophisticated threats emerging as outlined in this 2023 report from the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA).
Against this landscape, Amazon Web Services (AWS), known for its strong emphasis on security, provides several features at the core of its cloud infrastructure, bolstering your IT defences with a firm commitment that “37% of spending by its Information Security Managers is being allocated to securing cloud infrastructure.”
This investment focuses on the following:
Built-in Security Features – designed as the front-line preventative measure to data breaches and losses, public cloud includes built-in security features, such as encryption and firewalls. Along with compliance and access guardrails, these ensure authentication and verification with access to applications and workloads only available to key stakeholders.
As an example, AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) enables organisations to securely control access to AWS services and resources by defining users, groups, and roles. Using IAM, organisations can create and manage fine-grained access controls with permissions and specify who can access which services and resources and under which conditions.
Expert Security Teams – public cloud providers employ highly skilled specialist security teams to keep data and applications secure within the cloud environment. AWS has a vast, experienced team of world-class experts responsible for threat detection and response. They work to identify and mitigate potential risks and vulnerabilities in their cloud services quickly and effectively to keep your business-critical data safe.
Compliance – it can seem overwhelming to remain abreast of current industry and government compliance and regulations about your data security; the public cloud helps you meet your requirements and gives you peace of mind.
AWS complies with a range of stringent security and compliance standards, and these are outlined here. They include ISO 27001, SOC 1/2/3, PCI DSS, and HIPAA. Regular and comprehensive security audits and assessments ensure that its infrastructure and services continue to meet these standards and maintain a high level of security.
Cloud security – a share responsibility model
When it comes to security concerns, compliance, and migrating your applications and workloads to the cloud, whilst the benefits are clear, it is vital to remember that all providers operate under a shared responsibility model.
With this approach, your chosen cloud provider is responsible for the underlying security of the cloud infrastructure – the hardware, software, networking, and facilities. At the same time, your organisation is responsible for security in the cloud. This responsibility involves the management of your chosen operating systems and application software.
With responsibilities differing dependent on the service level agreement chosen and industry-specific regulations, it is important to fully understand what your provider is responsible for compared to your organisation.
To discover more about migrating to the cloud and the security benefits that are available to you, speak to one of our expert team here at Brightsolid.