In the world of cloud computing, the companies are facing new security challenges every year. The essential principles of the security are secure access, credentials, application usage, anomaly detection, encryption, and storage. Cloud security companies are developing products with prominent security features to tackle these issues. Transition periods for the organizations moving from mainframe systems to cloud systems are reducing sharply. They are operating with on-premise and off-premise devices spread across countries with different security laws. Such organizations are bringing greater security challenges and hence valuable business for security service providers like Oxeye. The security solutions providers should care for the needs of both security requirements and performance.
Cloud Security Services with High Growth Potential
Technologies such as artificial intelligence, the machine learning and the most recent deep learning encompass a number of solutions that can be used for security purposes. Anomalies in the behavior of ‘entities’ within the system can be detected easily with the help of deep learning technology. Machine-learning technologies will help to differentiate between the good and the bad software. This approach will offer a significant tool for security practitioners enabling them to detect the threat in advance and eradicate it.
Security hardware, firewalls, intrusion detection and prevention systems have taken a virtual mode for operations. As more organizations have started using the cloud technology, more kinds of vulnerabilities will emerge and consequently more approaches to security will also be developed. If cloud service providers can also expand their services to emerge as ‘infrastructure-as-a-service’ provider they will be able to offer the high-end data security available even to the small enterprises.
Encryption can be an effective technology for data loss prevention. There’s been a lot of security spending over the last several years, and yet the number of records breached is considerably high in recent years. Companies are considering this as the business opportunity to aid in compliance with data privacy and security regulations. It indicates the necessity of sophisticated encryptions and authentication therefore they are considered as emerging security trends for data loss prevention.
There are technologies which use big data analytics to identify the anomaly in behavior by a user. System defenders can spot a red alert if they are working with the user behavior analytics (UBA). There is a lot of interest shown in this technology by the enterprises as this can enhance the workforce output also. These technologies offer huge business opportunity. The technique called ‘peer-analysis’ compares how some user is behaving compared to other users with the same manager or same department. Training can be given to the employees for better security practices and enable them to adhere to the security policies. Technology can also enhance the security of endpoints like desktops, servers, tablets and laptops using most improved security monitoring, detection of threats and quick response capabilities to incidents.
Chipset within a device can be a part of the authentication process. Apart from passwords, the device acts as a token for security in cloud networks including laptops, desktops and mobile devices. Hardware authentication solutions at processor level can combine a variety of hardware-enhanced factors simultaneously to validate a user’s identity.
Solutions Offered by Cloud Service Companies
Clients have got multiple expectations while using the cloud service from providers. They should maintain complete control over their data processing even in multi-user cloud environments. They should be able to retain their efficiency and flexibility according to business objectives and policies. Access to ‘Software as-a-Service’ applications should be as secure as before.
High-performance solutions for the cloud security are available today which enable the governance. The management of sensitive data in a centralized manner for all applications, systems across all platforms with on-premises and partially or fully cloud environments is possible.
There are companies specializing in cloud security solutions and providing following services –
– Classification and protection, security assessment and audit, document management and watermarking, and encryption.
– Security-as-a-service platform, cloud discovery, real-time monitoring and blocking, on-demand application and configuration, and Sensitive data discovery.
– Privacy and confidentiality, risk assessments, data loss prevention, tokenization, flexible and granular email security controls, capabilities around user behavior, data loss prevention, and policy restrictions.
– Secure web gateway platforms positioned to capture traffic and see the flow of data to and from SaaS applications with reports of data flow, content, and user activity monitoring.
Challenges Ahead
There is a great service opportunity opening up for creative and innovative solution providers in the area of cloud security solutions but they are equally challenged on various fronts. Organizational level challenges represent those risks that may impact the structure of the organization or the business as an entity. The functional areas that are vulnerable and can be compromised are identified by exploring past business records. These areas represent potential threat or source of failure and needs to be secured on priority. The physical location of the cloud data center can come across a challenge of unauthorized on-site access. It can be prevented through staff training, physical location security, and network firewalls. Technological Security challenge is related to hardware, and services such as portability, maintenance. Compliance and issues related to the audit, lack of jurisdiction information or changes in jurisdiction and sometimes even illegal clauses in the contract often lead to the legal disputes over information security. Data Security challenges are mainly pertaining to data integrity, confidentiality, and availability. Multiple companies are coming to the market with same approach to deal with the security challenges and have similar solutions to the same problem. Real challenge is creating innovative and proactive solutions which can offer better security and smooth flow of business operations.
