Hybrid Cloud Security Best Practices

Hybrid clouds present organizations with a unique security challenge. Because they combine both on-premises and public clouds, securing these cloud environments can be complex. Organizations must adopt aggressive security practices for both clouds — and for data as it moves between clouds. Even more of a challenge: They need to be able to monitor all environments at once.

For the protection of sensitive data, infrastructure, and customer relationships, hybrid cloud security is paramount. Read on to learn more about hybrid cloud security and essential tools to protect your organization.

• What Is Hybrid Cloud Security?
• Why Hybrid Cloud Security Is Important
• Top Hybrid Cloud Security Best Practices
• The Role of Gigamon in Hybrid Cloud Security
• Conclusion

Key Takeaways

• Hybrid cloud architecture includes both on-premises storage and a public cloud
• Cloud security helps organizations maintain visibility and control over their cloud environments and enhance compliance
• Zero Trust architecture, role-based access control, MFA, and centralized identity providers can limit unauthorized access to the cloud
• Infrastructure as Code (IaC) automates compliance and policy enforcement while encryption secures data in transit and at rest.
• Gigamon is the leading cloud security solution for hybrid cloud architecture

What Is Hybrid Cloud Security?

Hybrid cloud security starts with hybrid cloud architecture. In these cloud structures, an organization uses both an on-premises cloud and a public cloud. This architecture enables organizations to have the best of both worlds: a high-security, high-control storage environment and a scalable and flexible cloud.

To protect these cloud environments, it’s important to have strong hybrid cloud security practices in place. Organizations use hybrid cloud security to maintain:

• Visibility: Organizations need deep visibility into both cloud environments to detect potential threats before they can do damage. They also need a high-level view of all traffic on both clouds at once.
• Control: Control over each cloud’s configuration, access, and workloads is also essential.
• Compliance: Activity in both clouds must comply with company policies and legal regulations, as must data as it moves between cloud environments.

Why Hybrid Cloud Security Is Important

Hybrid cloud security is crucial for a number of reasons. These include:

• Risks of misconfigured cloud resources: A misconfigured cloud can leave an organization vulnerable to data loss, breaches, service disruption, and other serious concerns. Cloud security tools audit and identify misconfigurations before they can be exploited or do damage.
• Rising cyber threats: In today’s world, it’s vital to remain one step ahead of cyberattacks, including ransomware and insider threats. A cyberattack can drag business operations to a halt, expose sensitive information, and hurt customers’ and partners’ trust.
• Regulatory compliance pressures: Hybrid clouds can make it more complex to maintain regulatory compliance requirements like GDPR, HIPAA, CCPA, and more. With the help of hybrid cloud security, organizations can enforce compliance policies across multiple cloud environments.
• Business continuity: In a worst-case scenario where a cyberattack or data loss leads to disaster, hybrid cloud security can help organizations recover more quickly. By continuously replicating environments, hybrid cloud security solutions minimize downtime.

Top Hybrid Cloud Security Best Practices

Ready to implement hybrid cloud data protection? Ensure you get the most out of your hybrid cloud security solution by implementing these hybrid cloud security best practices.

1.   Centralize Visibility and Monitoring

Hybrid cloud security architecture creates two clouds that are, in many ways, disparate from one another, making high-level visibility more complex than in a single cloud environment. According to one survey, 67 percent of organizations say that network blind spots are one of their biggest challenges in protecting their data.¹

Observability platforms like the Gigamon Deep Observability Pipeline centralize visibility so all behavior can be easily monitored at once. These hybrid cloud security solutions unify telemetry data from each cloud environment to eliminate blind spots and reduce security and compliance risks. You can see data in motion anywhere across your hybrid cloud infrastructure all at once.

2.   Secure Data in Transit and at Rest

Whether data is moving across cloud environments or stored in a single cloud, it must be encrypted. Each of these environments has its own encryption needs. Cloud security software supports data encryption for each of these scenarios:

• In transit: While in transit, hybrid cloud security best practices are to encrypt data using TLS
• At rest: Stored data should be encrypted using AES

Combined with other security best practices, including strict access control and regular backup habits, these practices can help keep all data secure.

3.   Automate Compliance and Policy Enforcement

In order to automate compliance and policy enforcement, hybrid cloud security tools operate off a policy known as Infrastructure as Code (IaC). This practice states that IT infrastructure should be configured using code and automation rather than manually.

IaC enables policies and requirements to be built directly into the cloud’s infrastructure and automatically enforced rather than requiring manual enforcement. These continuous compliance and policy checks limit the potential for human error and enhance compliance.

4.   Regular Security Assessments and Penetration Testing

Hybrid cloud security protection isn’t a set it and forget it solution. It’s important to regularly perform security assessments, including reviewing your infrastructure, access controls, policies, and other hybrid cloud security measures. A strong hybrid cloud security solution automates these tests, performs them continuously, and calls attention to concerns.

Penetration testing is also key. During these simulated cyberattacks, external users attempt to penetrate an organization’s hybrid cloud environment to identify areas of vulnerability or weakness. Penetration testing quickly illuminates problem areas so they can be addressed before they do serious damage.

5.   Identity and Access Management (IAM) Best Practices

To protect a hybrid cloud, it’s essential to maintain strict control over who has access to it. These hybrid cloud security best practices help organizations do so:

• Employ multi-factor authentication (MFA): MFA adds a second layer of security to account access to limit security breaches from weak or stolen passwords. It requires users to confirm their identity using a second level of security check, like a one-time code sent to a phone or email. This should be enforced for all users, regardless of their role or access level.
• Use least-privilege access: The more access users have, the greater your attack surface. This policy states that users should only have access to the permissions they need and nothing more. For small organizations, this can be done on a person-by-person basis.
• Utilize role-based access control (RBAC): For large organizations with hybrid cloud environments, individual access control can be quite cumbersome. Instead, organizations can group users by their role and assign access accordingly. Again, operate using a least-privilege access policy.
• Integrate with a centralized identity provider: These services create a single login environment for multiple systems, like hybrid cloud environments. They also provide enhanced security measures, like authentication and user activity logs.

6.   Consider Implementing  Zero Trust Architecture

Modern cyberattackers use highly advanced tactics to disguise their activity as they carry out destructive attacks. To ensure no nefarious behavior slips through the cracks, it’s vital to employ the hybrid cloud security best practice of Zero Trust architecture.

This hybrid cloud framework operates on the principle that no one should be automatically trusted, no matter how long they’ve been with the organization, their access levels, or prior logins. Zero Trust includes policies like:

• Verify everything: No user should be automatically trusted. Each user must re-authenticate each time they attempt to access the cloud. By treating all users as though they may be enacting a security breach, you can easily prevent a real one from occurring.
• Microsegmentation: Also referred to as identity-based segmentation, this policy isolates workloads and applies specific security policies to limit unnecessary movement within the cloud.

The Role of Gigamon in Hybrid Cloud Security

Developing a hybrid cloud security suite piecemeal can become quite cumbersome and costly. The Gigamon GigaVUE Cloud Suite™ is an all-in-one solution to help organizations secure their hybrid cloud environments. This cloud security tool offers centralized visibility and control over your entire cloud, thanks to features like:

• The Gigamon Deep Observability Pipeline: This deep observability pipeline delivers network-derived intelligence to organizations’ security and observability tools in real time. Organizations can detect hidden threats and strengthen their overall security posture while increasing efficiency.
• Network visibility: Organizations can use network visibility to enhance their ability to monitor network traffic for malicious behavior and potential threats. Detect unauthorized access to the network, uncover hidden malware in encrypted traffic, and mitigate security incidents with minimal time, effort, and cost.
• Real-time threat detection: Gigamon integrates with leading network detection and response (NDR) solutions to help organizations monitor and secure lateral (East-West) traffic. These NDR solutions analyze traffic from Gigamon to automatically detect cyber threats and provide unique insights about what the attackers are doing, so organizations can address them immediately.

Gigamon takes your security even further by integrating with cloud-native monitoring and observability tools to enhance their capabilities. Thanks to Gigamon, organizations’ existing tools can detect threats more precisely and accurately.

Conclusion

Without hybrid cloud security, complex cloud infrastructure leaves organizations vulnerable to cyberattacks, data loss, and other security threats. By following these hybrid cloud security best practices, organizations can protect their cloud environments. For leading hybrid cloud security capabilities, use industry-leading solutions from Gigamon.

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References

1. “What Is Network Visibility?” Gigamon. https://www.gigamon.com/resources/learning-center/network-visibility/what-is-network-visibility.html.