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What is Good Cloud Migration Security?

September 8, 2022

Jonathan Nguyen-Duy is the Vice President, Global Field CISO at Fortinet

By Jonathan Nguyen-Duy

Cloud adoption continues to be important for many organizations as they transform how they do business in today’s digital world. While there are many benefits associated with cloud adoption, the security implications of moving to the cloud cannot be ignored if organizations are to fully embrace it.

This blog outlines the benefits of cloud migration and the security challenges associated with the process. Also, there is a list of best practices for creating a powerful cloud migration security strategy.

What is Cloud Migration?

Cloud migration is the process of transferring an organization’s data and apps from on-premises servers to a cloud infrastructure. Cloud infrastructure enables organizations to access data storage requirements and computing capabilities when they are needed.

Rather than creating on-premises IT infrastructures or leasing data-centre space, organizations can rent cloud infrastructure and their required computing capabilities via third-party providers. This can mean cost savings to an organization’s operating budget due to lower spending on energy bills, IT personnel, hardware, servers, and software that are needed for a physical data centre.

Other key benefits of cloud migration are agility and flexibility. Cloud infrastructures are highly agile and flexible because they are self-managed and allow users to spin up new services and make changes in a matter of minutes. This permits organizations to be more focused on business and bottom-line issues rather than being bogged down in IT matters.

Cloud platform and infrastructure works through an abstraction process, such as virtualization. The goal is to separate resources from the physical hardware they are typically installed on and put them into the cloud. These virtual resources are provisioned into cloud environments using tools like automation and management software, enabling users to access the resources when they need them from wherever they are working.

Three types of cloud architecture:

When we talk about cloud infrastructure, we’re referring to the tools that are used to build a cloud environment. When we talk about cloud architecture, we’re referring to the design or blueprint of specifically how the various technologies for creating a cloud computing environment will be connected. There are three types of cloud architecture:

Public

Private

Hybrid.

Public cloud architecture uses third-party cloud providers to make cloud resources available to multiple customers via the internet. These providers operate multi-tenant environments that lower the cost of data storage and computing power for customers. Public clouds can have a drawback: privacy issues for organizations that handle sensitive data or personally identifiable information (PII).

In a private cloud architecture approach, cloud infrastructure is only accessed by the organization. The private cloud architecture can be built, developed, and maintained by a company’s own IT teams or delivered by external providers. Private clouds as their name implies address the drawback of the public cloud issue with privacy.

A hybrid cloud model is considered the best of both public and private architectures. The hybrid approach allows private and public cloud infrastructures to interact within a connected but separate system. This is ideal for organizations that handle sensitive information and PII, allowing them to store their critical data in private clouds and while keeping fewer sensitive data in public clouds. With a hybrid cloud architecture, organizations can maintain their private environments while accessing all the benefits of public cloud services for other computing tasks and storage.

What are the security risks that come with cloud migration?

There are several security-related challenges that organizations must overcome in the process, including compliance breaches and malware. Because the cloud is ever-evolving, some vendors will handle the changes well and some won’t. If a cloud provider goes out of business or has a dramatic overhaul, any enterprise using their services might be exposed to risk because of the upheaval.

Another cloud migration risk involves its reliance on the internet, meaning “any cloud solution is only as solid or reliable as the network connection it is built on.” It’s difficult for an enterprise and its users to accept downtime when apps and services aren’t accessible. Cloud infrastructures must have dependable connections and networks that are supported by service level agreements (SLAs).

A cloud migration security strategy must also consider that data controls are transferred from the organization to a cloud service provider. For the strategy to be effective, they must get buy-in from enterprise leaders. They need to accept the trade-off of getting cloud computing benefits while having less or limited control over access to applications, data, and any server-based tools.

Recently, a cloud survey showed some of the concerns about cloud migration from IT leaders mentioning a lack of visibility, high cost, lack of control, and lack of security as the biggest unforeseen factors that slow or stop cloud adoption.

Jonathan Nguyen-Duy is the Vice President, Global Field CISO at Fortinet.

Kelechi Deca

Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry

Why Ransomware Attacks Are On The Rise, Grew 1070% Since 2020

October 2, 2021

A global leader in broad, integrated, and automated cybersecurity solutions, Fortinet has unveiled the 2021 Global State of Ransomware Report showing that attacks grew beyond expectations by hitting 1070 percent since 2020.The survey which reveals that most organizations are more concerned about ransomware than other cyber threats also highlights the need to step up security measures.

John Maddison, EVP of Products and CMO at Fortinet

“According to a recent FortiGuard Labs Global Threat Landscape report, ransomware grew 1070% year over year. Unsurprisingly, organizations cited the evolving threat landscape as one of the top challenges in preventing ransomware attacks,” says John Maddison, EVP of Products and CMO at Fortinet.

“The high amount of attacks demonstrates the urgency for organizations to ensure their security addresses the latest ransomware attack techniques across networks, endpoints, and clouds. The good news is that organizations are recognizing the value of a platform approach to ransomware defense.”

However, while the majority of organizations surveyed indicated they are prepared for a ransomware attack, including employee cyber training, risk assessment plans, and cybersecurity insurance, there was a clear gap in what many respondents viewed as essential technology solutions for protection and the technology that can best guard against the most commonly reported methods to gain entry to their networks.

Based on the technologies viewed as essential, organizations were most concerned about remote workers and devices, with Secure Web Gateway, VPN and Network Access Control among the top choices.

While ZTNA is an emerging technology, it should be considered a replacement for traditional VPN technology. However, most concerning was the low importance of segmentation (31%), a critical technology solution that prevents intruders from moving laterally across the network to access critical data and IP.

Likewise, UEBA and sandboxing play a critical role in identifying intrusions and new malware strains, yet both were lower on the list. Another surprise was secure email gateway at 33%, given phishing was reported as a common entry method of attackers.

The research findings show that top concern of organizations regarding a ransomware attack was the risk of losing data, with the loss of productivity and the interruption of operations following closely behind. In addition, 84% of organizations reported having an incident response plan, and cybersecurity insurance was a part of 57% of those plans.

In regards to paying the ransom if attacked, the procedure for 49% was to pay the ransom outright, and for another 25%, it depends on how expensive the ransom is. Of the one-quarter who paid the ransom, most, but not all, got their data back.

While concerns about ransomware were reasonably consistent across the board, there were some differences regionally. Respondents in EMEA (95%), Latin America (98%), and APJ (Asia-Pacific/Japan) (98%) were only slightly more concerned about ransomware attacks than their peers in North America (92%).

All regions perceive the loss of data as the top risk associated with a ransomware attack, along with the worry that they will be unable to keep up with an increasingly sophisticated threat landscape. APJ, uniquely, lists the lack of user awareness and training as their top concern.

Respondents in APJ and Latin America were more likely to have been victims of a ransomware attack in the past (78%) compared to 59% in North America and 58% in EMEA. Phishing lures were a common attack vector everywhere, while remote desktop protocol (RDP) exploits and open vulnerable ports were top attack vectors in APJ and LatAm.

Almost all respondents view actionable threat intelligence with integrated security solutions or a platform as critical to preventing ransomware attacks and see value in artificial intelligence (AI)-driven behavioural detection capabilities.

While almost all of those surveyed felt they are moderately prepared and plan to invest in employee cyber awareness training, it is clear from the survey that organizations need to recognize the value of investing in technologies like advanced email security, segmentation, and sandboxing, in addition to the mainstays of NGFW, SWG, and EDR, to detect, prevent, and limit ransomware.

It is important that organizations consider and evaluate these solutions to reduce risk given today’s ransomware tactics and techniques. The most advanced organizations will adopt a security approach for their ransomware protection strategy that is platform-based and provides core capabilities fully integrated with actionable threat intelligence. They must also be designed to interoperate as a unified system and be enhanced with AI and machine learning to better detect and respond to ransomware threats.