As cyber threats evolve, robust cloud security is essential for protecting your business. However, creating a continuous cloud security program can be complex. Our team simplifies this process into three phases to enhance your program’s maturity. Explore part one of this three-part series now.
Cloud technology has many benefits, including scalability, flexibility, and operational efficiency. It also introduces vulnerabilities. Without strategic cloud security, you risk exposing sensitive data, which can lead to breaches and significant financial or reputational losses.
While there are many strong cloud security tools on the market, tools alone do not address the whole cloud security picture. While they may provide highly targeted relief to a specific issue, they do not offer broad strategic improvements. This is especially true for tools that are implemented with generic onboarding best practices and/or without policy guidance or custom controls.
To improve cloud security, a holistic approach is necessary. This includes not only utilizing tools but also global agnostic governance and controls, along with role-specific access, policies, and reporting. Adding this layer of customization on top of best practice configurations is an important maturity milestone and impact multiplier. This transforms tactical ideas into long-term, strategic solutions that streamline operations and free skilled staff for other work.
While that may seem daunting, it becomes easier when you break it down into three cloud security maturity stages.
Through these three stages, you can systematically mature your cloud security programs, ensuring robust, scalable, and efficient security measures that align with your strategic goals. In the following series, we will outline the details of each stage and how to implement it.
Let’s dive into Stage One: Define & Implement Global Governance.
Establishing a Comprehensive Understanding of Your Cloud Security
The first step in maturing your cloud security program is to thoroughly understand its current state. This involves collecting data through interviews and in-person interactions to gather qualitative context that you can leverage to curate and prioritize insights, strategy, and policy.
At this stage, it’s also important to develop clear, agnostic, and enforceable standards. These standards should be universally applicable and supported by automated executive reporting to ensure continuous compliance.
While this may seem challenging, focusing on the following areas can help overcome common obstacles in assessing your current state:
By focusing on these key areas, you can effectively define the current state of your cloud security and lay a strong foundation.
Key Actions for the First Stage of Cloud Security Maturity
After establishing your current state, it’s crucial to implement specific actions that align with your governance goals. These steps will help establish a foundation for effective cloud security and facilitate your journey toward compliance.
Investing effort in reviewing existing policies and resources and interviewing team members for history and context is crucial. While a tool-only approach is not ideal, a tool-driven approach, specifically using a CNAPP, can create unified observability without the need for extensive maintenance, freeing up the team to focus on policy creation and data collection efforts. This enables data-driven decisions and a robust, scalable cloud security program.
By following these foundational actions, you can cultivate a robust governance framework that aligns with strategic goals, leading to a more secure and compliant cloud environment.
Maturing your cloud security is a daunting but necessary task. It requires a candid, data-driven analysis of your current state. Establishing clear, measurable standards for maturity allows you to define your current state, future objectives, and helpful KPIs consistently. Keep an eye out for the next blog in this series, delving into the details of Phase Two: Maintaining Continuous Cloud Compliance.
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