Cloud computing is one of the most transformational technologies for today's businesses, enabling them to focus on core competencies by letting service providers take care of everything else. Organizations use cloud computing to build and run their websites, monitor their business processes, and run their applications and services. Organizations also store critical data and sensitive information on the cloud.

Cloud computing may be convenient and cost effective, but it has its own set of risks, such as unauthorized access to sensitive data, insecure APIs, etc. This post discusses the top seven methods to prevent cloud attacks and protect your data.

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WHAT ARE CLOUD ATTACKS?

Cloud attacks are a type of cyberattack that specifically target cloud-based systems and data. These attacks can take many forms, but they all aim to exploit vulnerabilities in the way that data is stored, managed, and accessed in the cloud. Common cloud attacks include data breaches, denial of service attacks, and account hijacking.

Organizations that use cloud-based systems and services are increasingly at risk of cloud attacks. These attacks can significantly impact an organization, causing data loss, financial damage, and reputational damage. To protect against cloud attacks, organizations need to have robust cloud security measures in place, including access control, data encryption, and intrusion detection and prevention.

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WHY ARE CLOUD ATTACKS SO DANGEROUS?

There are many reasons why cloud attacks are so dangerous, but here are some of the top ones:

1. The cloud is often used to store sensitive data. This means that if a hacker were to gain access to a company's cloud account, they could potentially access and steal sensitive information.

2. Cloud attacks can often result in data breaches. This is because hackers can access a large amount of data all at once, rather than having to target individual devices or accounts. This can lead to financial and reputational damage for a company.

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3. Cloud attacks can be challenging to detect and prevent. This is because the cloud is a complex system with many different components. This makes it hard to identify and fix vulnerabilities. As a result, companies need to be extra vigilant about protecting their data and preventing cloud attacks.

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7 WAYS TO PREVENT CLOUD ATTACKS

As more and more companies move to cloud-based solutions, cybercriminals are taking notice and are increasingly attacking cloud platforms. Cloud attacks are a rising threat to businesses, so it's vital to be aware of what they are and how to prevent them. This section will cover the top seven ways to avoid attacks on the cloud and keep your data safe.

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1. REGULARLY MONITOR IAM ACCOUNTS

One of the key ways to secure cloud services is to monitor IAM (Identity and Access Management) accounts regularly.

IAM accounts are the accounts that allow access to cloud resources. You can ensure that only authorized users can access your resources by monitoring these accounts. Additionally, you can detect any suspicious activity that may indicate an attempted attack.

Regularly monitoring IAM accounts is an essential part of securing your cloud resources.

Another critical step in preventing cloud attacks is to ensure that all IAM accounts are appropriately configured. This includes ensuring that strong passwords are used, and that accounts are not left unsecured.

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2. REGULARLY SCAN AND TEST CLOUD CONFIGURATION

Regularly scanning and testing your cloud configurations is critical to keeping your data and applications secure. Ideally, you should scan and test your configurations before and after every major release. This helps ensure that your configurations are up to date and compliant with security best practices.

This can be achieved using an IaC (Infrastructure as Code) scanner. A static IaC scanner can help you identify potential issues with your configurations, such as misconfigured permissions, insecure settings, and more.

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3. SET UP RULES FOR INBOUND TRAFFIC

Setting up rules for inbound traffic is essential for preventing cloud attacks. By doing this, you can control which traffic can reach your cloud resources and which cannot. This can help to block malicious traffic before it comes to your cloud, and it can also help improve performance by reducing the amount of traffic that needs to be processed.

It should go without saying that allowing ingress traffic from 0.0.0.0/0 to all ports and protocols is a terrible idea. Doing so would essentially leave your system wide open to attack, as any and all traffic would be allowed in. It's far better to be selective with your inbound rules, only allowing traffic that you know is safe.

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4. SET UP A CLOUD-NATIVE APPLICATION PROTECTION PLATFORM (CNAPP)

According to Gartner, Cloud-native application protection platforms (CNAPPs) are an integrated set of security and compliance capabilities designed to help secure and protect cloud-native applications across development and production environments.

The CNAPP platform offers a number of advantages over traditional application security solutions including encryption, data loss prevention, and user activity monitoring. With a CNAPP, businesses can rest assured that their data is safe and secure.

There are a number of different CNAPP solutions available, each with its own set of features and benefits.

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5. AVOID UNNECESSARY STORAGE BUCKETS

Buckets are containers in the cloud that are used to store data.

Storage buckets can be a significant security risk if not managed properly. If a hacker gains access to one of your publicly accessible storage buckets, they could potentially access sensitive data or even launch attacks against other resources in your account. Delete storage buckets whenever they’re not in use, and prevent public access to buckets.

Also, it’s crucial to ensure that the bucket is properly configured and encrypted in order to protect the data. If a bucket is unencrypted, it’s possible for unauthorized users to access and view the data stored in the bucket. This can result in a data leak, and it may also lead to compliance issues if the data is regulated.

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6. SET UP MONITORING/LOGGING TOOLS

One way to mitigate cloud security risks is to set up a monitoring and logging tool for your cloud infrastructure. This can provide visibility into your system's health and activity, and it can help you identify issues before they become problems.

Several different tools are available, so it's essential to choose one that meets your specific needs. Once you have a monitoring and logging tool in place, you can keep an eye on your system and act quickly if anything goes wrong.

There are a few different monitoring/logging tools that you can use for your cloud infrastructure. Some of these tools are open source, while others are commercial. Here are a few of the most popular options:

• Nagios is a popular open-source monitoring tool. It can be used to monitor your server infrastructure, network infrastructure, and application infrastructure.
• New Relic is a commercial monitoring tool that can be used to monitor your application infrastructure.
• Splunk is a commercial logging tool that can be used to collect and analyze log data from your server infrastructure.

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7. ADOPT A REMEDIATION CLOUD STRATEGY

A must-have for preventing cloud attacks is to have a fast, efficient remediation process that improves your mean time to repair (MTTR), particularly for critical vulnerabilities. New platforms, like the Dazz Remediation Cloud, are changing the way security and development teams collaborate to discover, reduce, and fix problems at their root causes.

By using automation to aggregate data and insights from cloud infrastructure and security controls such as scanning tools, security teams are able to expedite the process of prioritizing the alerts and issues that matter most—and even the developers who should fix them—in minutes versus weeks of manual investigation work. There are a number of benefits that come from automating the remediation workflow process, including faster MTTR, lower risk of breaches, better collaboration between AppSec and developer teams, and greater productivity and innovation.

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CONCLUSION

The cloud is an excellent place for your data and applications, but there are some concerns you should have about the security of your data. Cloud attacks are becoming more common, and you need to be prepared for a security breach. We've outlined several methods in this post that will help you prevent cloud attacks, and we hope you'll use this guide to help keep your data safe.

Detection is easy; it’s remediation that’s hard. With Dazz, it doesn’t have to be. Once you have full pipeline visibility, a deeper understanding of issues down to root causes, and the ability to quickly arm your dev team with context on critical fixes, you can bolster your security position and keep your business moving forward.

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