Migrating to the cloud offers businesses numerous advantages, including scalability, cost-efficiency, and enhanced collaboration. However, the process of moving data to the cloud also introduces potential security risks. Ensuring data security during and after migration is paramount to protect sensitive information and maintain compliance with regulations. Here’s a comprehensive guide on how to secure your data throughout the cloud migration journey.
Before diving into migration strategies, it’s crucial to understand the risks involved. Data breaches, unauthorised access, and loss of data integrity are significant threats. Additionally, compliance with regulations such as GDPR, HIPAA, or PCI-DSS must be maintained. Failure to address these risks can result in severe financial penalties, reputation damage, and loss of customer trust.
How can I ensure data security during and after the cloud migration process?
Protecting Data at Rest:
Whenever protection of data at rest comes into picture, there is one mechanism that is chosen as default solutions and that is encryption. However, encryption alone cannot solve data privacy and confidentiality requirements on the cloud. Ensuring data security during and after cloud migration is paramount to protecting sensitive information and maintaining business integrity.
Start by auditing your existing data, applications, and infrastructure to identify sensitive information and current security measures. This audit provides a baseline for your migration strategy.
The first line of defence in securing sensitive data is encryption at rest. This involves safeguarding information stored in databases, file systems, and other storage systems from unauthorised access. To achieve this, it is essential to employ a robust encryption mechanism alongside a centralised key management system.
Centralised key management ensures that encryption keys are stored and managed in a dedicated, secure location. This not only simplifies the management of keys but also enhances control over access, reducing the risk of unauthorised access to sensitive data. Periodic key rotation is another crucial aspect of encryption at rest. Regularly changing encryption keys adds an extra layer of security, mitigating the risk associated with compromised or outdated keys.
Perform a complete backup of all data before migration. Store backups securely and ensure they are easily retrievable in case of data loss or corruption during the migration process.
Migrate data in stages, starting with non-critical information. This approach allows you to identify potential issues and validate security measures before moving sensitive data.
Protecting Data In Transit:
For site to site data migration like on-premise datacenter to clouds or across clouds say AWS & GCP, you need a dedicated private link between both your sites. This is necessary for two reasons:
- Ultra low latency of < 1 ms that is required for any network based data transmission.
- Protecting data in transit from man in the middle attacks.
For client to site data migration lets say , your laptop to cloud the best option is to use a VPN client connection to a dedicated private object storage on cloud over encrypted channel. Make sure the SSL certificate is valid and the machine from which upload happens is safe. Once data is uploaded, it has to be sanitised and tested before using it in any application databases.
Implement strict access controls through role-based access control (RBAC) or identity and access management (IAM) systems. Enforce multi-factor authentication (MFA) to enhance security further.
APIs are critical for cloud integrations but can be vulnerable to attacks. Secure APIs with authentication, authorisation, and rate limiting. Regularly update API security policies to address new threats.
What compliance regulations do I need to consider for my industry?
Most global compliances divide data collected and stored by organisations under three categories:
Personally Identifiable Information(PII):
Any data that can be used to identify a person, basically any information connected to a specific individual that can be used to uncover that individual's identity, such as their social security number, full name, email address or phone number etc.
Each country decides the scope of its data protection law such as what kind of data would be considered as PII, which industry will fall under that etc.
In Indonesia public services companies must maintain datacenters in the country. The OJK, the Financial Services Authority in Indonesia requires data localisation for all PII (Personally Identifiable Information) data in a financial services organisation within the country.
Payment Card Industry (PCI):
Applies to all entities that store, process, or transmit cardholder data, including sensitive authentication data.
The most common compliance that uses such data is the PCI DSS certification, required for any business that processes credit or debit card transactions. It's considered the best way to safeguard sensitive data and information, and helps reduce fraud and data breaches across the entire payment ecosystem.
Protected health information (PHI):
Any information in the medical record or designated record set that can be used to identify an individual and that was created, used, or disclosed in the course of providing a health care service such as diagnosis or treatment.
Example: HIPAA that is relevant for healthcare organizations in the U.S., HIPAA sets standards for protecting sensitive patient data.
Another example is the GDPR that Applies to organizations handling personal data of EU citizens. GDPR mandates stringent data protection measures and gives individuals rights over their data.
PII is regarded as the entry point for fraudulent behavior and is the most frequent information that requires heightened risk identification, breach mitigating controls, and ultimately certification of control design and efficacy by an external auditor through a SOC 2, HIPAA, or PCI DSS engagement.
How do I choose a cloud provider that meets my security and compliance requirements?
Cloud platforms do not guarantee your IP(Intellectual Property) security, your security configurations and policies will. Attacks like DDoS, brute force etc are inevitable on the internet. It can bring down an entire business without even entering your perimeter.
For instance, The AWS Audit manager provides 200+ config rules that must be mapped to respective compliance framework controls. However you will need to review and update the evidence as per your organization’s compliance needs. And this need will keep upgrading as the Compliance Regulators update their benchmarks.
One such example is the growing use of AI in online products & services. With so much PII data being collected and processed every second, governments have already started looking into regulations. So compliance is an ever evolving paradigm and we need to keep in pace with that for both security and sustainability of business.
Regular security testing, auditing, penetration testing, vulnerability scanning must be enabled for all infrastructure resources. Version-Controlled Security as Code to make it auditable and traceable. This approach permits portability across cloud providers, as well as tenant-specific customisation and review.
These security policies must be enforced in the code as a first-class member of their infrastructure creation making it a default feature in every stage of the application lifecycle.
Conclusion:
Migrating to the cloud is a transformative process that offers numerous benefits, but it also requires careful planning and execution to ensure data security.
By understanding the risks, implementing robust security measures, and maintaining vigilance post-migration, businesses can safeguard their data and enjoy the full advantages of cloud technology.
Remember, security is not a one-time task but an ongoing commitment that evolves with emerging threats and technological advancements. Stay proactive, stay informed, and secure your journey to the cloud.
Ultimately, the choice between cloud and on-premise DR depends on factors such as budget, regulatory requirements, and the specific needs of the business. In many cases, a hybrid approach, leveraging the strengths of both, can offer the most robust protection against disasters.
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