Is Your Data Safe in the
Cloud?
Contents
Securing Data in the
Cloud
Data Security in the
Cloud: Tactics and
Practices
Any organization likely to be using public cloud
computing are also likely to be storing data in the cloud. Yet
storing data in the cloud also brings with it a number of
security risks which IT professionals should be aware of. This
expert e-guide, from SearchCloudComputing.com, explores
how to successfully secure data in the cloud while ensuring
its confidentiality, availability and compliance with physical
location regulations. Data security is a concern for any
enterprise, and cloud computing often can magnify security
anxieties. Learn how to adopt a few ground rules to help
protect users, their data and your overall cloud investment.
Securing Data in the Cloud
By: Phil Cox
In this tip, the seventh in our series of technical tips on cloud security, we discuss the security of data in the cloud. If and when you decide to use public cloud computing, it's likely that you will also need to store data in the cloud. The multi-tenant nature of the cloud and questions about the physical location of cloud data are security risks that organizations looking at using cloud services need to be aware of. This tip discusses practical methods for keeping your cloud data secure.
Storing data in the cloud is arguably the most important aspect of public cloud resources, but it is rarely treated as such. Two practical steps to take when securing cloud data are:
Protect your data in a real world environment.
Contents
Securing Data in the
Cloud
Data Security in the
Cloud: Tactics and
Practices
What are the issues?
There are two primary issues that we have to deal with when talking about data security in a public cloud:
Protection of the data: Dealing with the confidentiality, integrity,
and availability (CIA) criteria. Answering the important questions, such as, "What is the risk to the data? Are the controls in place adequate to mitigate the risk?"
Location of the data: Dealing with the physical location of the "bits"
and answering questions like, "Do I know where the data resides? Does this violate any of my compliance requirements?"
Location is often doubly important because we do not think about it; it may easily slip by unnoticed and have significant impact if a data loss ever occurs.
An example is the conflict between the U.S. Patriot Act and Canadian laws on the privacy of certain personal information. The U.S. government says if there is a compelling reason, they are able to see data in their jurisdiction. Canadian laws say that the data of certain Canadian citizens is protected and cannot be disclosed. If you handle Canadian data (i.e., data that is
protected), then you had better be sure it is not physically located on systems in the U.S. Note that this is something providers will need to ensure via contracts.
Where to start: Data classification
If you don't take time to understand your data, then you are setting yourself up for failure in a public cloud environment. Therefore, securing data must begin with data classification.
Here are some steps to follow:
1. Identify the data that will be processed or stored in the cloud.
Contents
Securing Data in the
Cloud
Data Security in the
Cloud: Tactics and
Practices
2. Classify the information in regards to sensitivity towards loss of the CIA criteria. This would include identifying regulatory requirements for the data.
3. Define the rules by which particular information classes of instances must be stored, transmitted, archived, transported and destroyed. Many handling requirements result from contractual or regulatory requirements.
A thought on physical location
As stated earlier, if there are restrictions on the physical location of data, you'll need to find a provider that can handle them. Amazon Web Services uses regions, and many of the other cloud providers offer similar structures. However, you need to ensure the service-level agreements meet your locality requirements.
Protecting data in the cloud
In the cloud, your data can be in any of the following locations:
Local storage of the virtual machine (i.e., processing engine). Data is tied to the virtual machine location and state.
Persistent data store (i.e., Amazon EBS or S3, Azure SQL, etc.). Data is independent of virtual machine location and state.
In transit on the wire.
You will also need to use one of the following methods to meet your data protection requirements:
File system and share access control lists: This would be using
the access control mechanisms in the offering to ensure appropriate restrictions on the data. This would be used in all cases, but it would not protect from malicious IT staff at the provider.
Contents
Securing Data in the
Cloud
Data Security in the
Cloud: Tactics and
Practices
Encryption with a mixture of public and private key solutions:
This would most likely be used to protect against malicious IT staff at the provider.
Transport level encryption: This would be used as a matter of
course whenever sensitive information was being passed or transmitted.
In closing
I strongly insist that everyone classifies their data. Once that is done, there are a couple of cloud issues you need to think about:
Is my data stored where is should be?
If there are any physical location limits, are those met?
Am I protecting against malicious IT staff?
The rest should be basic security practices, much like those used in your non-cloud environment. There is nothing obscure about securing data in the cloud. Just remember that "good security is good security" and you should be good to go.
Data Security in the Cloud: Tactics and Practices
By: Bill Kleyman
Data security is a concern for any enterprise, and cloud computing often can magnify security anxieties. Adopting a few ground rules will help protect users, their data and your overall cloud investment.
The list of security concerns with cloud computing may seem lengthy. In reality, though, cloud security tactics can fall into two main categories: partner-based security or security for Software as a Service, Platform as a Service or Infrastructure as a Service models and end user-based or
client-Contents
Securing Data in the
Cloud
Data Security in the
Cloud: Tactics and
Practices
Strategically plan your cloud security. Every environment is unique. Give
careful consideration to how corporate workloads should be delivered to end users. Placing security at the forefront during the initial planning phase creates a solid foundation and allows compliance-conscious organizations to create a resilient and audit-ready cloud infrastructure.
Pick your cloud vendor wisely. According to the Cloud Security Alliance,
data loss and leakage are the top security threats of cloud computing. It's crucial to choose a cloud partner that can protect your enterprise's sensitive data. When evaluating a cloud partner for corporate IT services, make sure the vendor has experience in both IT and security services. Verify that cloud-ready risk mitigation is part of the provider's common security practice. And evaluate only cloud providers that have a proven track record integrating IT, security and network services and can provide strategic service-performance assurances.
Formulate an identity management system. Every enterprise environment
will likely have some sort of identity management system that controls user access to corporate data and computing resources. When moving to the public cloud or building a private cloud, identity federation should be a major consideration.
A cloud provider must be willing to integrate an existing identity management system into its infrastructure using identity federation or single sign-on (SSO), or provide its own identity management system. Without this,
environments create identity pools in which end users must use multiple sets of credentials to access common workloads.
Protect corporate data in the cloud. In a secure IT organization, data from
one end user is properly segmented from that of another user. In other words, data at rest must be stored securely and data in motion must move securely from one location to another without interruption. Reputable cloud partners have can prevent data leaks or ensure that unauthorized third parties cannot access data. It's important to clearly define roles and responsibilities to ensure that users -- even privileged users -- cannot circumvent auditing, monitoring and testing, unless otherwise authorized.
Contents
Securing Data in the
Cloud
Data Security in the
Cloud: Tactics and
Practices
Develop an active monitoring system. Enterprises must continuously
monitor data in the cloud. Performance bottlenecks, system instabilities or other issues must be caught early to avoid any outages in services. Failure to constantly monitor the health of a cloud environment will result in poor performance, possible data leaks and angry end users. Organizations that are cloud-ready must plan which monitoring tools to use and how often they must track and monitor data.
For example, a company pushing a virtual desktop to the cloud may be interested in the following metrics:
SAN use
WAN operation
Networking issues or bottlenecks
Log-in data, i.e., failed attempts, lockout information
Gateway information
o Where are users coming from, is there suspicious traffic coming into the private cloud
o How are IP addresses being used? Is internal gateway routing functioning properly?
After that, you can implement manual or automated procedures to respond to any events or outages that occur. It's very important to understand the value behind actively monitoring a cloud solution. By constantly keeping an eye on the cloud environment, IT administrators can proactively resolve issues before an end-user can notice them.
Contents
Securing Data in the
Cloud
Data Security in the
Cloud: Tactics and
Practices
metrics like availability, notification of a breach, outage notification, service restoration, average resolution times and so on. Regular proactive testing will remove a great deal of security risks or potential for data leaks.
Even though your cloud provider conducts testing, it's imperative to also have internal test procedures in place. IT managers know the environment -- and its end-users' demands -- best. Inconsistencies or irregularities in how cloud-based workloads are being used can lead to security breaches or data leaks.
Next steps: Identity federation in the cloud
Thorough security tactics must be in place, starting from the host level and continuing all the way through the cloud infrastructure and to the end user. There are several tools on the market to help enterprises secure an investment in cloud computing.
Identity federation, for example, helps take credential management to the next level by securing a cloud infrastructure. Cloud computing offers great benefits to those environments prepared to make the investment, as long as they make wise and well-researched decisions when evaluating cloud security options.
Contents
Securing Data in the
Cloud
Data Security in the
Cloud: Tactics and
Practices
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