Companies thrive on innovation. Without it, they can’t develop, advance, and expand. And a company that doesn’t grow isn’t likely to attract investors or remain competitive.
So when a company wants to improve on an old idea or solve a problem by programming around it, they can bootstrap a new project almost instantly.
Project management has evolved over the years, not just in the number of new methods and strategies used, but also by switching to the cloud. It’s necessary today as employees work with remote offices and workers located outside the local perimeter. Working on the cloud allows workers to share project information, deadlines, documents, and more instantly.
This has also become much easier thanks to the abundance of Cloud products available, which means many companies are often nothing more than an intelligent stack of Software as a service (SaaS) products used to support their business flows.
Depending on the company’s size and needs, they may use a small team of developers, or sometimes just one individual.
As organizations continue to adapt, perfect, and expand their projects to innovate and grow, security becomes an increasingly urgent issue, and companies must make cybersecurity a priority.
Research suggests that only 21% of companies surveyed track over 90% of their software, while 56% track 70% or less. And when asked if their organization requires them to change their default passwords, a third answered they’re not required to. To add to their security woes, over 40% of respondents still don’t use two-factor authentication for accessing admin accounts.
Security needs to be a significant consideration in the early stages, and as projects grow and scale, the security needs to scale with it. Otherwise, vulnerabilities in your security will materialize, and your company may join the extensive list of breached organizations.
Best practices to secure your Cloud services early on
It’s no secret that organizations are using more cloud-based applications and storing data online, but companies need to balance their productivity gains against their security concerns.
Cloud security requires a different approach than protecting on-premise data centers. It needs a different set of rules, protocols, and infrastructure. The following combination of guidelines and tools are some of the most important factors to consider early on.
Ensuring correct configuration
It’s not only cyberattacks you need to worry about. You’re only one configuration mistake away from jeopardizing the security of your entire network. Misconfigurations are the result of human error and can be prevented by setting up proper checklists and methodology, such as ensuring EBS data encryption is turned on and restricting outbound access.
Never assume that your cloud provider will provide all of your security requirements. Your organization is the only one responsible for protecting and securing your data and network.
Strong Password hygiene
Strong passwords allow you to better protect your accounts, which host information or provide access to your network. The third most common reason for successful ransom infections in 2019 was due to weak passwords.
Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)
Implementing MFA requires that users identify themselves with a minimum of two credentials. Instead of asking for a username and password, MFA requires extra accreditation, such as a dynamic pin sent to the user’s smartphone or fingerprint verification.
Having MFA helps mitigate weak passwords or stolen user credentials. So even if a cybercriminal steals one credential, they can’t gain access without passing additional authentication factors.
Define user access rights
Providing each user with minimal access reduces the damage of a possible breach to an isolated area. You can define if an individual user can read, write, modify, delete, access, copy data, and configure settings inside a cloud app. The range of rights available to a user should depend on their position, requirements, and role in the company.
Every company is a target
It’s not just massive corporations that are targets for cybercriminals. The bigger the company, the larger its attack vector and number of possible weak endpoints that can be exploited. But don’t fall into complacency just because you’re not the biggest target out there.
According to a report by the Ponemon Institute, more than two-thirds of small businesses with 100-1000 employees came under attack by a cybercriminal in 2018.
Cybercriminals know that small businesses are more vulnerable because they lack the resources or knowledge to protect their weak entry points. The more success a company gains, the more attention you’ll receive from hackers. If you have any weak-points in your cybersecurity, you can bet that a cybercriminal will eventually exploit it.
A unified cloud-native security solution
The cybersecurity industry hasn’t sat idly by. To address the shift in security requirements, a new architecture has developed that converges security services and networking into one cloud-delivered solution.
It’s been coined SASE (Secure Access Service Edge) by Gartner and allows organizations like small businesses to solve the challenge of modern networking and security.
The SASE solution includes a large stack of security solutions:
Networking
- SD-WANs
- ZTNA
- QoS
- VPNs
Security
- FWaaS
- DNS
- CASB
- DLP
- SWG
- Threat prevention
SASE solves many of the modern challenges faced by businesses by unifying your network and security functions in a single cloud-delivered solution:
Lower cost – SASE can be consumed for a small monthly fee, requiring a relatively low capital investment
Full control and visibility – SASE enables security teams total visibility and control with cloud-delivered security capabilities
Reduced complexity – All the SASE security functions are managed centrally from one management console, reducing the need for multiple systems from different vendors.
Easy to scale – Cloud-based security is easy to scale as it requires minimal hardware implementation
Conclusion
Entrepreneurs and small businesses that properly plan and implement their cybersecurity from the very beginning can enjoy the benefits of scaling their security with their company as it grows.
Cloud-native security solutions like SASE mean organizations no longer need to rely on hardware-based point solutions. Instead, they can unify their security to reduce networking and security complexity and increase business speed and agility.
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