here’s no denying that the IT security landscape has changed dramatically over the last 10 years, and cloud solutions are popping up everywhere you look. Today we’re going to explore the reasons behind the increasingly popular cloud trend and take a look at those areas of the industry it’s having the greatest impact on.
What’s Causing the Switch to the Cloud?
Covid-19 and Remote Working
Before the Covid-19 pandemic hit, a lot of organizations were already experimenting with cloud technology and remote working solutions. Worldwide lockdowns and restrictions on movement accelerated the trend to the point that many companies have made the permanent switch.
Even once the pandemic is over, and measures are fully lifted, it’s highly unlikely we’ll see a total switch back to the old normal, with full staff numbers back in the office on a permanent basis. Employees have gotten used to the flexibility of working remotely, and with more staff working from home, businesses simply don’t need complicated on-site infrastructure.
Skills Gap
Maintaining high-quality perimeter defenses from on-premises tech requires a large team of highly skilled IT engineers. Plus, with cybersecurity requiring your attention 24/7, you need additional staff to cover your out-of-hours service times. Quite simply, many organizations are struggling to fill these roles given an industry-wide skills shortage.
This is leading many to turn to outsourced cloud providers. Companies no longer need to worry about recruitment, skills shortages, or finding the right people as this can all now be handled by cloud experts.
Cost and Performance
Managing an on-site security system requires maintenance of expensive server equipment, monitoring software, and an expensive team of experts. In addition, being responsible for your own performance and security adds extra layers of risk. If something were to go wrong with your equipment, the consequences could be a company-wide breach.
Instead, many organizations are happy to outsource security to a cloud provider, where the economies of scale reduce costs dramatically, and performance is optimized.
Better Security
In many respects, cloud solutions are more secure than old on-site methods. You can control exactly what your staff has access to when they connect remotely, third party providers are usually fully audited and you’ll get access to a team of experts that are dedicated to security 24/7.
Where is the Cloud Proving to Be Most Effective?
Firewalls
There are many industry experts that argue that the cloud has killed the traditional firewall. Traditional solutions simply can’t keep up with the complex requirements of today’s businesses.
Many software applications used to exist in on-site data centers, but the switch to entirely online platforms, and the increased use of mobile devices, has meant a different type of security perimeter has had to be created. These days organizations aren’t just vulnerable to targeted network attacks, security teams have to consider threats from across an uncontrolled internet.
This is where ‘Firewall-as-a-service’ steps in, and is essentially the cloud replacement of on-premises solutions. These impressive tools can filter out any untrusted web traffic and are being constantly updated against zero-day threats by the software provider. Organizations can still input into the firewall rules too, but many find leaving it to the hands of the experts the best solution.
VPNs
One of the biggest changes that have been accelerated by remote working is increased use of VPNs, or virtual private networks. With employees now being able to log into networks, web-based systems, and company resources from just about anywhere in the world, a cloud VPN provides secure networking to keep their activities protected from prying eyes.
When staff works remotely and is unable to connect to IT support, a VPN allows you to deploy a private server connection, encrypt traffic and manage your network log-ins. So even when your staff members are connected to public or unsecured WiFi, they can still connect in total privacy.
Security Operations Centers
Security Operations Centers (SOCs) are quite complicated tools to manage in-house. You need staff to be on call 24/7 in order to respond to any perimeter threats, and even then you might not have the technical capability to isolate and mitigate a threat effectively.
Outsourcing security operations to a cloud provider has now become the norm. The providers usually have monitoring centers all across the globe, giving you true 24/7 coverage, and they’re staffed by experts. It’s up to each organization how much control they’d like to hand over to the managed SOC. Some are happy to devolve all responsibility for the outsourced provider, allowing it free reign to detect and deal with threats. While others prefer a notification system where in-house IT teams will still play a role.
Either way, it’s becoming rarer to see organizations opt for a fully on-site solution as there are simply too many benefits to outsourcing.