Cloud security architecture seeks to incorporate appropriate protection for application deployments within the cloud environment, such as automating firewall policies, provisioning certificates, and managing privileged accounts.
Understanding the shared responsibility model for cloud security architecture is integral for building effective security structures, as this involves identifying where cloud service provider and customer responsibilities begin and end.
Network Security
Network security is a fundamental aspect of Cloud Security Architecture, covering the design and technology employed to secure internal and external networks that connect to cloud environments and cyber threats. A comprehensive approach includes multiple layers of defense with robust sets of tools working in concert to safeguard data, applications, and services.
An effective firewall must filter traffic entering and leaving a network, blocking access to suspicious content and requiring two-factor authentication before authorizing access to sensitive applications. Furthermore, an integrated threat intelligence feed should constantly monitor enterprise attack surfaces and threat behaviors so policies can be automatically updated to account for potential new vulnerabilities.
Secure VPNs offer another layer of protection between an enterprise's internal network and any external connections that may be necessary to access cloud-based resources, protecting from attacks designed to exploit vulnerabilities within its perimeter - such as operating system vulnerabilities used by cloud service providers - or software used by these service providers.
Your Cloud Security Architecture must also address insider threats from employees authorized to access systems and services, as well as administrators at cloud service providers who could alter system architecture or release data to third parties without your knowledge. Finally, your network should include tools that prevent malware and bot attacks.
One common misstep among architects is trying to force-fit their mental model of threats and controls from on-premise environments onto cloud environments, often leading to gaps in security coverage and missed opportunities to protect against new attacks. SEC549 helps students build a solid mental model of the cloud environment and its security controls to adapt their threat models appropriately for this world of distributed perimeters and unknowable trust boundaries.
As is the case with any cloud environment, security responsibilities fall on both parties involved - both CSPs and customers must bear responsibility for safeguarding data and applications hosted in cloud environments.
Access Control
Access control is a vital element of cloud security architecture, ensuring the appropriate people can gain access to resources on devices at appropriate times and from all relevant locations. Access control encompasses granular permissions for containers or serverless functions, strict zero-trust principles to limit breach impacts, and data encryption solutions designed to secure information during transit and at rest.
Bot detection and mitigation tools must be implemented to protect against malicious bot activity, which remains the leading cause of cybersecurity breaches. Furthermore, architecture should include malware protection for both operating systems and virtual networks and tools that prevent cloud API misconfigurations and integrate seamlessly into CI/CD pipelines.
As well as granular access controls, an architecture should include security monitoring tools that alert IT when suspicious activity occurs. Such monitoring tools should notify IT staff if security policies have been violated and enable escalation to the appropriate levels in a company.
Architecture should follow a shared responsibility model between an organization and their cloud service providers. This model indicates where one provider ends and another begins; for instance, this may stipulate that customers are responsible for securing traffic between corporate networks and any cloud-based IaaS virtual machines (VMs), PaaS apps, or SaaS deployments that the customer may have deployed in their cloud account.
To accomplish this goal, architecture must feature a flexible design that facilitates rapid deployment of new components and solutions without compromising security and reducing time for updates and patch implementation. Furthermore, IT needs a continuous engagement model to respond to threats or other issues as they emerge quickly; taking full advantage of cloud services while keeping high levels of security intact requires close alignment among security architects as well as teams dedicated to specific technical topic areas like identity protection, endpoint security, or threat intelligence.
Application Security
As part of your cloud application development strategy, you must consider how data will move throughout the system and what security measures will be in place at that application level. These may include authentication, authorization, and encryption; with authentication granting only authorized users access; authorization prevents misuse by cybercriminals, while encryption safeguards user data against being misused by a criminal.
The cloud allows you to rethink your threat model and shift security controls away from a perimeter-focused approach typically deployed in on-premise environments toward a more distributed architecture with unfamiliar trust boundaries and elements. This course introduces this world and its architectures and controls that facilitate it, equipping you to design effective cloud-native security architectures.
Cloud computing presents numerous benefits yet also poses some unique challenges. According to the shared responsibility model, the cloud service provider protects their underlying infrastructure. At the same time, customers must safeguard any personal or sensitive data stored in their specific cloud deployment(s). This course will help you understand this shared responsibility model so you can design systems to protect data in an increasingly cloud-centric world.
Application-level security demands a more integrated and flexible approach than traditional on-premise systems, especially when dealing with multitenancy architectures. Application isolation is vital to prevent disgruntled employees or competitors from accessing company data by connecting directly to an instance of an application - multitenancy, container isolation, or network isolation are all methods available to achieve this objective.
Intel has long provided advanced security features in its processors, and its latest offerings continue to push the envelope of confidential computing in the cloud. Intel SGX technology enables developers to establish memory enclaves to provide additional layers of workload isolation. At the same time, cryptographic accelerators deliver fast performance when processing sensitive data - combined; these abilities help protect against attacks like remote exploits, memory dumping, and memory tampering attacks, as well as remote exploits aimed at remote exploits and memory dumping attacks. Intel Platform Firmware Resilience gives architects tools for protecting against firmware interception and detecting compromised systems while speedy recovery of compromised systems for quick recovery times after compromise detection of compromised systems.
Contractual Security
Companies moving their operations to the cloud require a security architecture that addresses multiple aspects of the environment. Cloud vendors provide both technical and conceptual tools for security architects to work with; best practices and configuration patterns published by vendors provide guidance, as do tools to detect misconfigurations and attacks, audits/penetration tests run for organizations to assess capabilities for meeting standards/ensuring disaster recovery; they may even offer data encryption/securing access controls services as additional benefits.
Architecture must enable organizations to monitor, detect and respond quickly to events occurring in the cloud. This may involve operational concerns like an employee taking sensitive information without authorization or an attacker using web applications to redirect user sessions towards malicious websites and physical security threats to data centers or network service providers.
Security architectures must be designed in such a way as to support cloud infrastructures in an automated, repeatable fashion - including automating detection and response procedures for security incidents. They should also support agility needed when quickly deploying applications and solutions; for this to work efficiently requires a flexible set of policies, tools, and technologies that allow enterprises to define granular permissions on containers or serverless functions, as well as zero trust principles so all communications remain secure.
Finally, an architecture must be capable of meeting all relevant industry standards and regulatory compliance frameworks. This can be challenging as these standards often vary across applications or industries, and as new threats emerge, regulators respond with more stringent laws.
Cloud security architecture comprises four primary areas: posture management, application security, data protection, and governance and engineering technologies. An ideal security architecture must address these technologies and policies comprehensively to avoid creating an array of point solutions that inevitably arise through development processes.
