Multi Cloud Security Architecture: The Secret to Safekeeping Data

Businesses depend on multiple cloud based platforms to function seamlessly. While these significantly reduce IT complexity, maintaining a huge infrastructure of multiple endpoints opens a pandora’s box of complications – non-compliance, and security threats, vulnerabilities.

As more companies adopt BYOD policy, the number of cloud components deployed outside the organization’s firewall are now higher than ever, creating the need to reduce workflow chaos and manage the security environment. A robust multi cloud security system helps to fill this gap.

This article helps you understand what multi-cloud security architecture entails, the challenges, benefits, and best practices.

What is multi cloud security architecture?

Multi cloud security architecture is a framework for protecting privacy and security of sensitive data, code repos, and applications deployed across multi cloud service providers. It works by deploying a suite of technologies that combine end-to-end protection capabilities to ensure confidentiality, integrity, and availability across multiple cloud service providers.

Examples of multi cloud security architecture includes both private and public clouds like AWS, Microsoft Azure, IBM Cloud, and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.

What is a multi cloud security architecture composed of?

Multi cloud security architecture is composed of components like compliance frameworks, policies, firewalls, and threat protection systems. All these components function together to minimize operational disruptions caused by potential threats and vulnerabilities.

1. Data governance and compliance

Depending on factors like the type of data you process, one or multiple data privacy and security frameworks may be mandatory for your business. These regulations pertain to how organizations should handle sensitive data, policies around protecting them, preventing unauthorized access, and controls to manage them responsibly. you can use a GRC tool like Sprinto help implement regulatory requirements.

2. Policy enforcement

The policies you develop around processes and practices like risk management, security, vendor onboarding, etcetera should not just be confined to the print. You should have a system in place to implement these policies. As you add new technologies and vendors to the architecture, the changes should reflect in the policies.

3. Management / Analytics

A security management system helps to assess the protocols and processes within the IT infrastructure. It enables teams to identify threats, risks, and vulnerabilities so you have an idea of a potential attack before it happens. Security threat analytics helps to evaluate the nature and degree of the attack.

4. Web application firewall

A network security device that continuously monitors, filters, and blocks incoming and outgoing traffic based on a predetermined set of rules. Firewalls are a critical piece of your multi-cloud security architecture as they work as a barrier between your private and public networks.

5. Data loss prevention 

Data loss prevention (DLP) systems are designed to detect data loss or leakage through unauthorized use and transmission. It protects data from use or motion across networks, endpoints, and even on-premise storage systems. DLP systems help users comply with standards like HIPAA, GDPR, and PCI DDS by identifying sensitive data and storing them in a secure manner. 

6. Malicious IP blocking 

IP blacklisting is a technique of filtering unknown or suspicious IP addresses from entering, altering, or accessing your system. You can add or remove the blacklisted addresses manually based on policies or based on incident history. 

7. Advanced threat protection

Advanced security systems like extended detection and response (XDR) provide holistic protection against a wide range of threats. This unified approach collects data across endpoints like networks, servers, applications, emails, and other endpoints to contextualize threats and facilitate timely response.

8. VPN IPSec tunnels

These are secure connections that use Internet Protocol Security (IPSec) protocol to encrypt and authenticate data shared between networks. It secures remote access and in Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) to protect sensitive data from unauthorized access.

9. Identity and Access Management

Abbreviated as IAM, this is the practice of controlling who can access what and how much. It aims to prevent unauthorized users from accessing sensitive information by setting predefined rules around an organization’s internal data assets and networks. Identity and access management is a critical control required by some of the most widely adopted regulatory frameworks like HIPAA, ISO 27001, GDPR, and PCI DSS.

10. Cloud access security broker

A cloud access security broker (CASB) is a set of security solutions that help you take control of your cloud environment by acting as a policy enforcement point between service consumers and service provider’s cloud infrastructure. It combines multiple security policies, access control, encryption, user authentication, and malware detections.

As more companies adopt the remote work environment, monitoring access and interaction of cloud applications is becoming an important piece of the multi cloud security architecture.

What are the benefits of multi cloud security?

A multi cloud security is a holistic approach that adds resilience to your posture, helps you ensure compliance with security frameworks, and reduces the risk of a single point of failure. 

The benefits of implementing a multi cloud security architecture are: 

1. Better control

A multi cloud security environment offers the flexibility to partner with multiple cloud service providers and allows you to choose the best service rather than being tied to a specific one. Greater the flexibility, higher the scalability.

Additionally, multi cloud gives businesses the flexibility to implement focused services instead of relying on one solution that fits all services.

2. Ensure regulatory compliance

The increased adoption of a cloud based environment adds risks and vulnerabilities to the data deployed in it. This creates a security gap and has increased the need for regulatory scrutiny such as GDPR, CCPA, and HIPAA.

These regulations offer guidelines and best practices on how to store and handle sensitive data in a secure way. A multi cloud environment helps you comply with these requirements from a centralized solution and eliminate the burden that comes with managing multiple premises.

3. Cost optimization

The more disconnected and siloed your cloud infrastructure is, the more complex and costly it is to manage all workflows. A single solution that integrates with all system components of your cloud setup can significantly reduce maintenance costs.

4. Deeper visibility

A multi cloud solution collects and consolidates all data from multiple data points into a centralized view. A single view provides IT teams with sufficient context and visibility to make security related decisions and understand the status of overall posture so that if an issue occurs, they can immediately resolve it.

5. Business continuity

When you distribute the workload across multiple cloud systems, it reduces the chances of failure to a single point. This way the impact of an outage is limited to the affected system; if a particular cloud suffers downtime, workflows can be routed to another cloud that’s functioning as intended. 

Preventing contamination from spreading helps to ensure business continuity, a practice that is critical to build resilience as you grow.

Challenges in maintaining multi cloud security architecture

Businesses often face roadblocks when maintaining a multi-cloud architecture. These challenges include but are not limited to meeting regulatory compliance requirements, managing the attack surface as they scale, and addressing configuration errors in cloud architecture systems. Let’s understand some of them:  

1. Larger attack surface

Security risks and threats are directly proportional to two factors – the volume of data you process and the number of systems on your cloud environment. As you grow, your infrastructure becomes more complex and adds more risks to it.

This is why, when your infrastructure comprises multiple cloud providers, the security posture takes a hit. If a single component is compromised, there is a risk of the infection spreading horizontally – ultimately increasing the blast radius.

2. Data governance and compliance

Data governance practices are mandatory in many organizations and voluntary in some cases. This is because data privacy and security frameworks regulate the flow of information in your systems. As you expand to new territories and process larger volumes of sensitive data, multiple data compliance frameworks may be mandatory.

Given that multi cloud deployment requires to to distribute data and applications, this necessitates the need to create multiple policies, a tracking system for each regulation, and compartmentalize their progress.

3. Configuration errors

Multi cloud setups and complex interconnection of systems, policies, tools, and processes – each has a different use case and is managed by specific role(s). This has introduced a set of configuration challenges – different system has different requirements for passwords, access control, encryption, compliance obligations, and so on.

It is not uncommon for system administrators and operations managers to make configuration errors as maintaining these systems require continuous monitoring to keep up with changes.

Best practices to improve multi cloud security architecture

Implementing multi-cloud security best practices helps you maintain a consistent security posture, proactively identify cyber threats to reduce security breaches, identify suspicious behavior, and monitor the entire environment.

Here are the best practices to improve multi cloud architecture are: 

1. Continuously monitor

Malicious actors love cloud setups, thanks to the increased attack surface. Combine this with poorly maintained and laxed security practices, it’s a gold mine for hackers. 

This is why it is critical to keep an eye on health and performance to gain full visibility into your posture – what’s working right, which systems are malfunctioning, what’s failing, and which systems require your attention.

2. Automate workloads

If you try to manage all systems, policies, networks, and application workload manually, it will eventually drown you in a rabbit hole of security lapses, non-compliance, and stretched bandwidth.

Use a centralized system to automate your workflows, configuration requirements, access control management, and compliance activities. Consider using an automation tool that gives you centralized control and visibility.

3. Identify gaps

Automating and monitoring your cloud setup adds little value unless you proactively identify and mitigate the security risks. As the threat landscape is continuously evolving, you cannot let your guard down. 

Conduct risk assessments to understand the gap between your actual and desired cloud security posture. The frequency of assessments should be based on the complexity of your data environment and regulatory requirements.

4. Ensure third-party risk management

A multi cloud setup comprises tools from dozens of vendors. When you add third party contractors and partners, they gain access to certain components of your confidential system, thereby adding risks.

Develop policies around third party risk management practices and get a buy in from all stakeholders. Identify all risk scenarios and score the risks using a risk quantification method.

6. Secure data transmissions

When you transmit sensitive information over public networks, risks like unauthorized access, data loss, and data theft are introduced. You can secure data transmissions by encrypting it. Data encryption helps in preventing data loss to malicious actors, such as a ransomware attack.

Multi cloud security compliance with Sprinto

If you have a multi cloud setup, managing multi-cloud security comes with its fair share of challenges. Effectively managing these challenges is crucial to maintain a strong posture and use it to land more sales deals. However, managing a complex infrastructure is not easy as traditional approaches are prone to error and slow down productivity.

Enter Sprinto, a multi-cloud security compliance tool that continuously scans your posture for non-compliance risks and vulnerabilities. It seamlessly integrates with your cloud infrastructure to consolidate risk and compliance management from a single dashboard. It automates control checks, notifies your team of non-compliant activities, and monitors the cloud setup in real time. 

With Sprinto, you maintain control over security compliance, minimizing potential threats with minimal human intervention. Curious to know more? Reach out to our experts for a chat!

FAQs

How to choose a multi cloud security solution for your business?

To choose a multi-cloud platform, your security teams should assess your specific security needs, evaluate compatibility with your existing cloud setup, implement threat detection and response capabilities, choose a tool that automates most of your workload, and consider a vendor who offers 24*7 support.

What capabilities should I look for in multi cloud solutions?

Your multi-cloud platform should have features like data loss prevention, multi-factor authentication systems, monitor security controls, implement role-based access controls, identify security vulnerabilities and potential security gaps, intrusion detection capabilities, and network segmentation. 

What are the different types of cloud security architectures?

Cloud security architectures include public cloud, private cloud, hybrid cloud, and multi-cloud. Public cloud relies on third-party providers for services, private cloud offers dedicated resources, hybrid cloud combines public and private elements, and multi-cloud uses multiple providers.