Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Jon Stewart is the President of ZenSource, an open source platform combining CMS, enterprise level cloud hosting and support.
When it comes to cloud hosting and security, the abundance of vendor and service offerings is vast, given that infrastructure providers such as Amazon Web Service (AWS) and Microsoft Azure have enabled organizations to harness their depth of tools. The ability to expand around the globe and bring resources online, on-demand is more at our fingertips than ever.
However, not all providers are created equal, and configuration flexibility to secure an environment cannot be overlooked. Cloud hosting as a service does not mean automatic security. Here are five tips to help ensure your cloud can scale securely while avoiding hidden costs.
Principle Of Least Privilege
When setting up your environment, it’s imperative to grant users the minimum level of access required to perform their tasks. Start by defining the list of users and their roles to determine what access they will need to the environment. Restrict resources to only necessary connections and permissions and practice resource access limitation within their defined roles.
Network Access Control
Work on segmenting the network to isolate sensitive data and systems and ensure that only authorized services can communicate across segments. One approach is to have three subnets/segments: public, web and database. Public is the public-facing segment, so this is where the load balancer will live.
Protection Against Common Threats
Shield applications from common web exploits like SQL injection, cross-site scripting and cross-site request forgery. Integrate a web application firewall (WAF) to act as a barrier to prevent unauthorized access and data breaches.
Cloud Hosting Provider Competitive Assessment
When looking at cloud hosting providers, ensure they have a system, process and documentation in place for how they handle the above three best practices.
Cost Of Ownership
Lastly, explore the total cost of ownership and what that means for security and scale. Start by understanding what is included with the base install versus what future add-ons are. Another way to look at it: Can additional services be added, or are you pigeonholed to the vendor’s current setup?
Forbes Technology Council is an invitation-only community for world-class CIOs, CTOs and technology executives. Do I qualify? Follow me on LinkedIn. Check out my website. Jonathan Stewart Editorial Standards Print Reprints & Permissions
