As your business transitions to a cloud environment, your security team can take on a symbolic identity of being a big, impenetrable wall that keeps cloud engineers from achieving their goals. It doesn’t have to be such a struggle between cloud and security teams. With a little bit of proactive communication and planning for internal collaboration, these teams can end up being a valuable support to one another throughout implementation and in the event that a breach occurs.

Take a look at some ideas for fostering healthy partnerships between security and cloud teams:

Foster Open Communication Early

It’s a good idea to take the approach that security – and more broadly, protecting the trust and privacy of all end users – is the responsibility of every team member of your business. Cloud and security teams should be invited to discuss how security can be effective, yet minimally intrusive, as well as determining how to remove friction that might slow the onboarding process for critical resources.

It might be a good idea to introduce shared online spaces where questions are encouraged, and each team should develop some ways to anticipate questions to save the time and effort of waiting to discover challenges.

Define Success

Both teams should be invited to define how success is identified. The terms need to include both security criteria and the goals around the budget and approving a project to move forward. It’s a good idea to build this consensus early so that both teams have a focused approach on what they are trying to achieve.

Establish Cloud Privileges and Manage Them Closely

Tight management for account privileges should be something that is explained to both teams and embraced equally by them for a granular view into how resources are being accessed and used. In the interest of cloud security, cloud engineers should request only the privileges their roles require to do their jobs well and nothing more.

Meanwhile, security teams must have a structured policy and workflow defining how privileges are decided that is built into the business ticketing system. It’s a good idea for cloud and security teams to work together to create this process, centering on a shared discussion rather than one team dictating an established process to the other.

Think About Cloud Management Platforms

A cloud management platform (CMP) or a security information and event management (SIEM) platform can offer the data and reporting that cloud and security teams need from the deployment stage to ongoing operations.

You can also use various communications and internal collaboration tools that allow for group chat for cross-team sharing. It may be ideal to identify a single person responsible for building the relationships between the two teams.

Document Decisions

Any major decisions involving cloud and security teams should be captured in a hardcopy documentation that is accessible to every member. This is key for use in cases of a ransomware or other kinds of attack that limit access to documentation stored on systems. A simple binder can be adequate for housing your documentation, but keep your format simple so that updating records doesn’t become cumbersome.

Encouraging internal collaboration between cloud and security teams often comes from leadership that embraces security as an organization-wide responsibility. Contact us at eXemplify to learn more about creating better communication and teamwork for cloud migration.