7 Cloud Security Controls That Every Company Needs

The privacy and security controls in the cloud are likely the biggest concerns for most companies when it comes down to adopting the idea of the cloud and cloud computing. This is probably why some companies have still not made the move to the cloud. But, companies must understand the risks involved with the cloud and then set very strict policies and controls to help protect all their critical company data.

Cloud Security Controls

Below are 7 cloud security controls that companies moving to the cloud should have in place.

#1 – Security Architecture: You should analyze all security from the stack delivering service. Analyze the physical hardware to the virtual machines, and the network and all the way to the applications.

#2 – Identity and Access Management: It is very important for a cloud solution to have a complete identification and approval framework. This framework is typically referred to as the 3 As of security: Authentication, Authorization and Access Control. It is also a popular requirement for the cloud server to be able to support SAML and to provide single sign on abilities.

#3 – Data Protection: This protection will address the security across all aspects of the data lifecycle, meaning from data creation to how the provider removes it in case you leave their service.

#4 – Governance: A company will give up direct control over most aspects of their data and security under the cloud model that is why governance is key, because it provides the visibility and control over such things as policies, procedures, and the standards for development of applications, the implementation and ongoing monitoring of all services deployed in the cloud.

#5 – Risk Management: Providers will have to provide some evidence of a healthy risk assessment framework. This evidence should include some reports of scans for vulnerability, application security testing and any other risk assessment tools. Companies of any size need to take a good look at what is going into the cloud and what is not.

#6 – Compliance: The term compliance is defined as an agreement or consent with an established law, standard or regulation. Your company’s compliance requirements are likely based on your industry, your company’s location or the location of your cloud data center.

Also, with increased concerns around any government snooping, your company need to get complete audits and reports for all of its users, data and all devices to help stay up on all compliances at all times.

Cloud Computing Availability

#7 – Availability: When it comes down to the thought of a solution’s uptime and being obtainable, a lot of companies tend to just look at the numbers given to them by their cloud provider. Yet, they fail to think about what might happen if any of the following things happen:

Temporary loss of access
Outage – equipment/network failure
Permanent loss of data
Partial or complete
Natural disaster
Denial of Service
Business continuity
Disaster recovery

I hope this list of cloud security controls will help you to be able to choose the right cloud solution to meet the needs of your company.

To read more about cloud security and security controls, visit Cloud Security Controls.

To learn more about security in the cloud, visit NIST and Cloud Security today.