Top 9 Network Security Vulnerabilities Common to the Cloud

Whenever you see a spike in adoption of any technology you can be sure that security vulnerabilities soon follow. In the rush to “get IT done” we neglect to “make IT secure”. We have observed, as the pandemic takes hold, cloud adoption is accelerating, and this considerable growth reported by cloud vendors confirms this. This acceleration of adopting the cloud has resulted in cloud security misconfigurations. These misconfigurations are due to a lack of visibility into what is occurring in these environments. Therefore, we can expect security vulnerabilities. But these are in the cloud, and attackers seem to be even more active than ever right now. And think about this, a network security mistake in the cloud may introduce and amplify unintended risk to your organization and customers. We will examine to most frequent network security mistakes associated with cloud adoption, including: 1.VM remote administration exposed to the Internet 2.Storage resources exposed to the Internet 3.Unprotected 2nd tier microservices 4.Unprotected cloud resource authorization keys 5.Insecure and unshielded container and orchestration infrastructure 6.Misconfiguration of cloud security groups and controls 7.Unprotected, insecure API 8.Lack of understanding of complex cloud resource interaction 9.Access that violates internal or regulatory compliance standards Some are similar to normal on-premise network security issues but others are highly arcane to the cloud and you might never have thought of them. As much as possible I’ll provide real world examples. My guest, from our sponsor FireMon, Josh Williams, is a subject matter expert in empowering organizations to identify and mitigate risk within their network infrastructure. Josh will briefly discuss how organizations leveraging public and private clouds, need regular modifications to the network configuration, and user access to keep up with business needs and avoid the consequences of misconfigurations.