Organizations spanning all industries have adopted multi-cloud security strategies to great advantage, but along with those perks come risks. Cyber criminals have exploited weaknesses, giving rise to new cyber security concerns. Fortunately, working with the right provider can fill the gaps and prevent breaches.

With the adoption of public and private cloud offerings, organizations have a vast amount of flexibility and are able to deploy workloads across multiple technologies. The hybrid approach certainly keeps IT teams on their toes – but with so many headlines about hackers getting into networks and compromising data, these teams are now tasked with investigating ways to prevent their multi-cloud approach from being their Achilles’ heel.

Known Risks

Rather than experience provider lock-in, businesses utilize the multi-cloud environment and are able to stay flexible. One area that lacks accessibility, though, is IT teams’ ability to manage the data involved in multi-cloud security. A trend that hit during the pandemic was a spike in attacks. There are multiple reasons for this, but a major one has to do with so many people working remotely and without the protections they otherwise would have had working in the office.

IT teams who are already tasked with managing multi-cloud security become overwhelmed, which can lead to a host of risks, including ransomware attacks — one of the major types that can bring an organization to its knees. According to IDG, roughly 55% of organizations have adopted a multi-cloud computing strategy (as of 2020), which means without proper attention to a cloud security strategy, these organizations are vulnerable to attacks such as malware, phishing, man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks, SQL injection, zero-day exploitation, and DNS tunnelling, among others.

Security Best Practices

Uncontrolled data flow is an issue that many cyber security teams encounter when they purchase software as a service (SaaS) or infrastructure as a service (IaaS) from different providers. They can’t apply unified sets of data use policies, which means they aren’t able to set access control protocols to the various cloud applications. With a single point of management, security can be bolstered.

Another best practice includes addressing the risks brought on by remote work. A strong virtual private network (VPN) solution can prevent the pervasive MITM attacks and others, such as sniffing attacks. A cloud solution involving bringing remote workers under the office firewall can also prevent these attacks.

Third Party Assistance

Working with an experienced third party to obtain managed security can bring many assurances to organizations working in the multi-cloud environment. This approach takes the massive workload off the backs of IT teams and provides well-rounded defenses without stifling workflow. At eXemplify, we provide a comprehensive approach to multi-cloud security and a strategy that will reinforce your network protections. Our managed firewall technology, analytics, and advanced integration of machine learning and big data help our clients get ahead of potential threats. Contact us and let’s discuss our approach to securing your environment.