Table of contents
1.
Introduction
2.
Cloud Security Governance 
2.1.
Governance In Cloud Security Governance
3.
Why is Cloud Governance Important?
4.
Top 6 Principles Of Cloud Security Governance
5.
FAQs
6.
Key Takeaways 
Last Updated: Mar 27, 2024
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Cloud Security Governance

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Introduction

Today almost every business is migrating its resources to the cloud in order to fulfil their needs and goals. There are multiple reasons why Cloud is replacing the traditional methods. One of them is three major cloud service areas – Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS). 

These benefits include rapid deployment of information systems, significantly reduced operating costs, massive economies of scale, processing speed, agility, and whatnot? However, subscription to these services frequently entails security and compliance challenges for enterprises, which are frequently unprepared to address them.

Source: meme

The security challenges could be Data breaches, system vulnerabilities, insufficient identity, and credential and access management that subscriber enterprises must address in the cloud environment. 

To effectively manage cloud security, an enterprise may lack adequate operationalization and enforcement of policies, functions, a formal operating model, or even a properly formed organisational function in some cases. In other cases, the enterprise may not exercise its responsibility to protect data in the cloud adequately, or it may lack the means to provide senior management with visibility into cloud security performance and risks. Even when an enterprise stands to gain significant business benefits from transforming its service delivery model through the use of Cloud Computing platforms, these issues may persist. The underlying business issue that is causing these challenges is a lack of effective cloud security governance. Now the question may arise how to overcome these? 

The answer you’ll get after reading this blog. So let’s start with the discussion:-

Cloud Security Governance 

Cloud security governance is a management model that enables effective and efficient security management and operations in the cloud environment, allowing an enterprise to meet its business objectives. This model includes a hierarchy of executive mandates, performance expectations, operational practices, structures, and metrics that, when implemented, result in the optimization of an enterprise's business value. Cloud security governance can help leaders answer questions like:

  • Are our security investments producing the expected results?
  • Do we understand our security risks and how they affect our business?
  • Are we gradually lowering security risks to acceptable levels?
  • Have we created a security-conscious culture within the organisation?

The list is not over yet, there could be more such questions that can be answered via Cloud Security Governance. Now, you must get an idea about the role of Cloud Security Governance. 

Governance In Cloud Security Governance

Now that we’ve understood that Cloud Security Governance is a management model that helps the Cloud in many different ways. But what exactly does it do?

 

It uses cloud computing services in accordance with specific policies or principles. This model aims to secure applications and data even if they are located in a remote location. People, Processes, and Technology are all important components of the best Cloud Governance solutions. It essentially refers to the decision-making processes, criteria, and policies involved in the planning, architecture, acquisition, deployment, and operation of a Cloud computing capability, as well as the architecture, acquisition, implementation, operation, and management of a Cloud computing capability. Cloud Governance best practices aid in the optimization of the organisation's:

  • Operations: Getting it Done Quickly
  • Risk and compliance: How to Do It Safely
  • Financial: Getting more done with less

Why is Cloud Governance Important?

Here are a few ways that cloud governance can help a company that runs critical services in the cloud.

Enhances Cloud Resource Management

Cloud governance can aid in the division of cloud systems into individual accounts that represent departments, projects, or cost centres within an organisation. Many cloud providers recommend this as a best practice. Separating cloud workloads into separate accounts improves cost control, visibility, and reduces the business impact of security issues.

Reduces Shadow IT

If an organisation is unaware of which systems and data are deployed where the risks and costs of cloud systems rise dramatically or when traditional IT services do not respond quickly, it is very common for employees to turn to shadow IT systems.

The use of information technology systems, devices, software, applications, and services without explicit IT department approval is known as shadow IT.

Cloud governance enables employees to request cloud resources in a convenient manner while still ensuring the organisation's relevant controls and visibility. Instead of relying on shadow IT, employees can gain access to cloud systems while remaining within the organisation's compliance and budget constraints.
 

Cloud Security Issues are Improved

A cloud governance model establishes an authentication strategy to protect information's confidentiality, integrity, and availability. It enables the organisation to ensure that sensitive information is visible and that appropriate security controls are in place, regardless of where data exists or critical systems are deployed.

Reduces Administrative Overhead

Without a cloud governance plan and the technology to support it, organisations typically rely on spreadsheets or other manual processes to track cloud accounts, costs, and compliance issues, as well as control access and budgets for cloud resources. This is inefficient, prone to errors, and fails on a large scale.

A comprehensive cloud governance solution allows organisations to define policies centrally and apply them to the entire cloud infrastructure. It centralises control over access and costs, generates alerts, and makes responding to violations easier. This saves time and effort while also lowering the risk of non-compliant activities and unexpected cloud costs.

Next, we’ll discuss the Top 6 principles of cloud security governance: 

Top 6 Principles Of Cloud Security Governance

Six governance principles for cloud-based solutions serve as the foundation for effective governance. The governance requirements of each organisation differ. As a result, you should modify the policies listed below to fit your specific needs.

Financial Management

 

This principle incorporates Budget policies and cost trend policies. Both of these policies are intertwined in the sense that you must be aware of cost trend influencers in order to determine whether budgets will meet or need to be adjusted.

Cost reduction

A cost reduction or optimization policy saves money by keeping you up to date on opportunities to take advantage of committed use discounts and alerting you when committed use discounts are not being fully utilised.

Operational Governance

System testing, two cost-cutting measures - identifying and terminating unused ZOMBIE assets, and scheduling stop/start time for non-production instances used in the development, software testing, staging, and QA - are all part of the operational governance principle.

Performance Management

Best practices for cloud governance also include ensuring that data is stored in the most cost-effective location possible. By establishing a governance structure around technical performance management capabilities (i.e., the process of transforming data into informative performance indicators in visual dashboards), your organisation can ensure that performance insights are used to prompt action and information sharing across organisational levels.

Asset and configuration administration

Asset and configuration management includes everything from consistent tagging for cost allocation to identifying non-conforming assets, such as those that exceed the allowed capacity, are incompatible with existing assets, or were launched outside of the United States.

Management of Security and Incidents

To address issues, the best Cloud Governance solutions or services cover multiple cloud security components and may need to be subdivided into smaller principles. For example, Encryption, access controls, security groups, audit trails, and application access rules. 

FAQs

  1. What are the Cloud Governance best practices?
    Best practices for cloud governance differ depending on the objectives and stage of the cloud journey of each business. In addition, thousands of Cloud Governance solution providers are now available in the online marketplace. One must first analyse the business assets and performance before constructing. As a result of having complete visibility of business resources, policies can be easily governed
  2. What are the Cloud Security Governance Challenges?
    There are multiple Cloud Security Governance Challenges like Performance, Management, Governance/Control, Cost Management, or Security Issues. 
  3. How the Lack of operating model, roles, and responsibilities can lead to a Cloud Security Challenge? 
    Many enterprises that are transitioning to the cloud lack a formal operating model for security or do not have strategic and tactical roles and responsibilities that are properly defined and operationalized that can undoubtedly have the capability to become an obstacle for the Governance.
  4. What if there is no Cloud Security Governance?
    Lack of effective cloud security governance can result in Data breaches, system vulnerabilities, insufficient identity, and credential and access management. 
  5. Which are the most effective Cloud Security Governance Tools?
    The best Cloud Security Governance Tools are listed below:
  • Cisco Cloudlock
  • Bitglass
  • Cato Networks | Cato SASE
  • Fugue
  • Perimeter 81
  • Illumio Core

Key Takeaways 

In this article, we’ve walked through Cloud Security Governance in detail. We’ve understood the importance of Governance followed by its six important principles. Now, adopting the Cloud Governance Strategy effectively begins with defining the team that will handle governance and audit-related tasks, understanding how security policies will impact the cloud governance adoption roadmap, and establishing best practices for building the cloud governance framework. 

To enhance your understanding of the field of Cloud Computing check out more articles:   Introduction to Cloud-Computing, Introduction to Cloud Security, and many more. 

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