The Common Myths of AWS Security

Recently, at a Netskope security forum, we had the opportunity to launch into conversations with leading CISOs about trends in enterprise security. During the discussion, a Chief Information Security Officer from a global organization gave his perspective on why it’s critical to maintain continuous compliance in AWS and cloud infrastructure environments and the common misconceptions that exist.

“We were using a lot of cloud-based platforms and every one of them had a different security framework with different capabilities. The overhead associated with managing them all was becoming unbearable and we needed one unified security control point. That’s when we brought in Netskope. Today we use Netskope to safely enable Box, Salesforce and Microsoft Office 365. As we grow, in order to enable and accelerate our adoption of AWS and Microsoft Azure, we can rely on Netskope to give us visibility, compliance enforcement, and protection of our workloads within these environments.” – CISO, Global Financial Services Organization  

Here are the common misconceptions of security in cloud infrastructure environments and the challenges that many enterprises face that came up in the discussion:

What do you see as the most common mistakes companies make while managing their AWS resources?

Most AWS cloud security risks and incidents can occur because of a simple human error.  As a security department, it’s very important to have a quick, reliable, and current view of the configuration and control over the security settings of your cloud accounts and assets. This enables you to automate controls and react quicker with fewer resources. Having an out-of-the-box solution that can provide automated security and compliance controls, as well as visibility into infrastructure is key. Most importantly, having a solution to seamlessly scale alongside cloud workloads is needed. Managing AWS resources to maximize cost savings while experiencing optimal security and service is a journey. Avoiding some common mistakes earlier will help you strike a balance sooner and reap the benefits of the cloud.

What are the top challenges enterprises face in protecting their cloud infrastructure?

Cloud Compliance

Establishing compliance in the public cloud is a top priority. Given the rapidly scalable nature of AWS environments, enterprises need to check whether they are compliant with various frameworks at all times. Misconfigurations can immediately make you non-compliant. Also, when policy violations did occur, you need automation capabilities built into your workflow. Ask your DevOps team if they have a way to efficiently monitor or control security and compliance and find out what they have to say.

Visibility

Having a view of your security infrastructure is vital and can help identify misconfigurations. This visibility allows you to minimize security holes that could open up the attack surface. Having a tool to help synthesize and visualize this information from a single pane of glass can be powerful.

In the age of DevOps developers can unknowingly expose more risk

The developer’s job is to develop. That doesn’t mean they can forget about security. In fact, developers must work hand in hand with operations to understand how to integrate security into app design.

The mindset that security imposes constraints and slows down application development

When you embed cloud security, it is a powerful differentiator for the business, building user trust. Using tools to automate security controls enables speed and ensures security matches business agility.

To learn about how to avoid the top 10 AWS security mistakes made by businesses and what you can do to stay safe download Netskope’s white paper: Top Ten AWS Security Mistakes and Solutions.