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What are the primary cloud hosting security challenges?

With the ease of doing business, many companies are shifting their business infrastructure towards cloud hosting. Cloud web hosting has become immensely popular because it offers to store your website’s files on multiple servers and lets you pull resources from a variety of different places. Your websites will tap into clusters that use resources from the centralized pool. This clearly states if one website fails to load, another resource will kick back to the website running. Apart from hosting, there are a lot of other aspects that need to be taken into consideration.

When most companies search for Cloud hosting India plans, they will definitely want to know about security that is implemented in the clouds. Having the finest security solution won’t end the cyberattacks but implementing security policies create trust among the companies. Cybercriminals always try to find vulnerabilities in the clouds which could lead them to infect the data on the clouds. While analysing, a group of working practitioners, developers, designers, and testers determine a list of security threats, that could have to make a huge negative impact to cloud users. Below we have explained common vulnerabilities common cloud security challenges. We will tell about security challenges as well as about recommendations that you should implement in your cloud practice: –

Note: – All recommendations are taken from CSA (Cloud Security Alliance). CSA is a non-profit organization that promotes the best practices of the cloud.

Improper Configurations – When configurations are done incorrectly, they become vulnerable to attack. In many recent attacks, improper configurations were found that have exposed sensitive information of the company. Using default configurations could lead to unauthorized access to the cloud.

CSA recommends: –

  • To pay special attention to data accessible via the internet.
  • Creating and maintaining a strong incident response plan whenever required.
  • Change default configurations. For example – changing default ports can confuse the cybercriminals because most of the time, attackers try to inject malicious activities on default ports.
  • Analysing web traffic logs by setting up the SIEM (security information event management) tools on the cloud network. There are numerous SIEM tools that are available in the market.

Lack of Cloud Security planning – Many companies jump directly to the cloud without having any proper architecture and strategy in place. Customers must understand the cyber threats they are exposed to, how to migrate to the cloud securely. It’s not an easy-to-go process. Without a strategy, you are inviting cybercriminals to exploit the company’s data.

CSA recommends: –

  • Always develop and implement a proper security architecture framework and also don’t forget about the security monitoring procedures.
  • Create a security architecture that aligns with business goals and objectives. Designing, developing, and deploying impact application
  • Taking proper visibility on virtual resources because virtual gives more independence than a base machine. Implement security in virtual instances also.

Authentication Policies – A major cloud security threat can also be linked to identity and access management issues. Implementing improper credential protection. For example – use of weak passwords, absence of multifactor authentication, and improper credential protection.

CSA recommends: –

  • Use strong passwords, if possible use passphrases rather than using passwords. Passphrases contain text with numbers and symbols. Using passphrases could avoid brute force attacks.
  • Use two-factor authentication and removing unused credentials.

Account Hijacking – Account hijacking is a threat in which malicious threat actors gain access to unauthorized accounts and spreads malicious activities. In cloud environments, the highest risks are cloud subscriptions accounts or admin accounts. An attacker uses different methods to compromise such accounts. For example – phishing is the most popular method used widely by threat actors to steal login credentials.

CSA recommends: –

  • Authorize the limit of admin users.
  • Use IAM (Identify and access management) tools and controls for accounts security.
  • Separate your productive and non-productive accounts.
  • Always maintain regular documentation about the recent changes.

DOS (Denial of Service Attacks) – DOS attack is the most common attack that is executed by attackers to consumer cloud CPU resources. A large amount of data packets is thrown to the target IP address which results in disrupting of cloud managed services. The main motive of the attacker is to suspend and interrupt cloud services. As a result, the attacker even demands a ransom to stop the DOS attack.

CSA recommends: –

  • To implement reverse DOS techniques.
  • Setup a weblog analysis team to mitigate such attacks.
  • Use SIEM tools or strong network firewalls with regular updates.
  • Updating employees about new cyber threats.

Data Privacy – Data privacy is a major concern for organizations. Data regulations like PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard), HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accessibility) and many more imposes strict penalties for security failures. Using these regulations creates a good impact on the cloud hosting provider’s image. Many cloud hosting companies have adopted such regulations to provide the best security features for the company.

Conclusion: –

Hence, the above cloud hosting security challenges are really important to understand and companies should consider these challenges. Companies like Go4hosting have been constantly working by implementing such security policies in their data centres.

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