The cloud landscape is altering the way organizations do business. The gradual shift to the cloud brings its own set of challenges, security being one of the prime ones. With its framework and security center, Microsoft Azure provides customers with a host of tools to protect their business assets in the cloud environment.
There are certain security challenges with Microsoft Azure that you can overcome using third-party integrated solutions like https://sonraisecurity.com/solutions/azure-and-sonrai-dig/.
Key Challenges of Azure Cloud Security and How to Avert Them
Visibility and Control
Organizations have their business spread across multiple public clouds. Data and applications are available on different clouds. Several person and nonperson identities are interacting with these components. As and when the business grows, the infrastructure becomes complex. Gaining a cohesive view of the complete Azure system without having a proper Azure online training becomes an uphill task.
With a third-party security solution, you can uniquely identify every entity in the system with the help of access keys. You can trace them back to the layer they are associated with, and understand how they are flowing through the cloud. With complete visibility over the system, you can proactively identify misconfigurations or deviations, if any.
Tracking Data
In the Azure cloud environment, data is spread across multiple places. Production data could be used in development for testing purposes. You could have sensitive but unclassified data flowing through the environment. In case of a security breach, your organization could stand to lose confidential data to the attackers.
Security solutions could integrate with Azure and run scans across the environment to identify and classify data according to the baseline set. You can have a running model ready of what data is available in what place. With constant monitoring, you know who can access data, how they can access data, and any inter-dependencies.
Governance Automation
Several entities are available in the Azure cloud environment, constantly interacting with each other accessing applications and data. Owing to the complexity of the landscape, tracking every identity, what it is doing in the system becomes complicated.
With a partner security solution, you can automate the process of trust mapping, ensure the principle of least privilege is enforced. There are no privilege escalations, dependencies causing violations, or creating toxic access combinations in the cloud environment. You could automate scans and push security into every layer of the software development lifecycle, integrating processes into the CI/CD pipeline.
Strengthen Security with Continuous Monitoring
The Azure security center provides a host of built-in controls to identify any network, applications, data, or identity issues. But with the number of cyber threats on the rise it falls on organizations to look beyond security solutions provided by the cloud infrastructure.
You can create an extensive network of security as Azure can be easily integrated with partner solutions. These solutions can offer deeper insights into the cloud environment and provide actionable alerts for optimal functioning. With monitoring, identification, classification, data governance, the cloud is continuously checked for any vulnerabilities. Issues are remediated, and preventive policies are put in place to avoid risk creation in the first place.
Cloud Security Posture Management
There are many settings involved with the cloud environment. CSPM is a continuous process to identify and remediate any cloud misconfigurations. Managing the Azure environment only with the help of vendor tools can become a challenge.
With a third-party security solution, know what is deployed on Azure, identities, configurations, and relationships. Draft baselines and run audits to ensure the cloud environment complies with business policies.
Azure provides multi-level security and several built-in controls to handle cyber threats. You can further strengthen cloud security and protect your business assets with a third-party security solution.
