The cloud’s popularity has skyrocketed as businesses look to it for ways to save costs and increase productivity. According to Gartner’s estimates, investment on the public cloud around the world will approach $500 billion. However, companies’ cyber travels don’t end with a cloud migration.

Users and cloud service providers both bear some of the security burden. It is the responsibility of businesses to ensure the safety of their customers’ information, and this obligation extends to the protection of data stored on the cloud and in other infrastructural components, such as internal networks.

Unfortunately, security breaches leading to the release of sensitive data are common, and can be the result of things like open APIs or misconfigured AWS S3 buckets. When it comes to cloud access, security professionals must think about a number of factors, including who gets access, what kind of authentication they use, and how much they use the cloud.

Many businesses are failing at this. Lacking a sophisticated approach to security, many still rely on spreadsheets to keep track of user names and passwords. If users have to manually submit an email to a member of IT or security to get their credentials issued, the company is taking a huge risk in an expensive area.

IBM’s Cost of a Data Breach Report 2022 found that the three most expensive attack vectors related to credentials: phishing ($4.91 million per breach), business email compromise ($4.89 million per breach), and stolen or compromised credentials ($4.5 million per breach).

Companies should take a more proactive stance towards security. Credential management in a spreadsheet was never a safe practice, and improving the security of that information doesn’t have to be difficult or expensive. The first steps are outlined below.

Examine the company’s culture once more.

When faced with security measures that make it more difficult for them to accomplish their goal, humans have a remarkable capacity for rationalisation. They have poor risk assessment skills; for example, many employees will re-use their Netflix passwords at work because they contain a mix of random letters and numbers.

Here, philosophical disagreements and policymaking begin to collide. People are a company’s strongest asset and its greatest cybersecurity vulnerability. The World Economic Forum estimates that human mistake accounts for 95% of all cybersecurity incidents. This has repercussions for how money and assets are allocated inside businesses.

When tackling these issues and allocating resources, business executives must maintain a sense of equilibrium. It’s tempting to ignore security in favour of investing in new features that will boost profits, but doing so will only make the company more vulnerable to cyberattacks in the long run. By investing in security to a sufficient degree, companies can get an edge over rivals and strengthen their resilience.

Get covered by insurance, if you qualify.

Organizational security and resilience can be strengthened by investing in cyber insurance. Without insurance, many industries would be too dangerous to enter. However, it’s more complicated than just filling out a form.

According to Fitch Ratings, premiums will climb by 74% in 2021 as insurers attempt to reduce their exposure to risk. Many businesses need to demonstrate they have robust endpoint detection and response (EDR) and multi-factor authentication (MFA) for network access before their insurance policies will approve them for coverage. Beazley says that if a business hasn’t set up multi-factor authentication, it is more than twice as likely to get hit by ransomware. PAM (privileged access management) measures are often mentioned by cyber insurance companies as a way to qualify for coverage. When it comes to PAM controls, even the most basic password manager is better than a vulnerable spreadsheet with sensitive information.

Cyber insurance companies now play a big role in getting people to use the latest security technology. Putting these safety measures in place also makes businesses more appealing as insurance policy candidates. 

Realize the cloud’s unique characteristics

Usually, when it comes to protecting a company’s data, only the internal network is taken into account. Prior to ensuring a safe entry within the bubble, all bets were off. Workers had high levels of confidence and open access. When working in the cloud, deciding which identities can be trusted to have access to which resources becomes more complicated, and the bubble takes longer to set up.

Migrating to the cloud might alter an organization’s cyber environment and raise the risk of cyber attacks. Multi-factor authentication (MFA) and strict PAM constraints are needed to know where passwords are and how users are getting in.

What worked a few years ago to protect a company’s network on-premises won’t cut it in the cloud. Experts must look at security through the lens of “zero trust,” taking into account everything from account data to authentication methods, to make sure that cybersecurity teams are giving access responsibly and not putting their organizations at risk.

The transition to the cloud is an exciting time for any company, but it is the responsibility of cyber leaders to ensure that enough safeguards are in place so that security can keep up with the rapid pace at which businesses innovate.

Summary

Businesses use the cloud to cut expenses and boost productivity, increasing its appeal. Businesses must protect consumer data in the cloud and other infrastructure. Using spreadsheets to track user names and passwords, many companies fail. Companies should reassess their security culture and be more proactive. Human error causes 95% of cybersecurity issues, which affect business asset allocation.

Executives must combine security and innovation. Cyber insurance requires sophisticated endpoint detection and response (EDR) and multi-factor authentication (MFA). PAM measures are often used to qualify for insurance, but a simple password manager is better than a vulnerable spreadsheet. Cyber insurance providers help people adopt new security technology. The cloud’s properties make data protection harder.

Experts must use zero trust to verify cybersecurity teams are granting access without risking their organizations. Cyber executives must establish enough security to keep up with commercial speed.