According to leading cloud security provider findings, cloud customers faced around 681 million cyber-attacks in 2018. Due to many businesses moving to the cloud, the cyber-attacks are more likely to increase.
Today’s hackers are armed with the latest tools to find out security loopholes in your cloud environment and gain a backdoor entry. Most cyber-attacks can be averted if you have systems that can identify abnormal activity that is the first sign of a cyber-attack. This article discusses the need for consistent cloud security monitoring and how it helps make your system more secure.
Table of Contents
An Essential Part of HIPPA Requirement
Hackers mostly target healthcare organizations as they hold a vast amount of their customers’ personal and financial data. The healthcare industry’s regulating body requires healthcare organizations to take a proactive stance for data and systems security.
Many healthcare organizations frame identity and data access policies but fail to implement them effectively. Similarly, they buy the latest security tools. Still, they fail to take adequate steps to update them or make significant changes in the configuration for optimal protection. The result of all this is a compromised system vulnerable to hackers.
If you take a closer look at HIPPA requirements, you can find cloud security monitoring as one of the essential requirements. The regulating body requires the healthcare organizations to monitor everything, including users and their actions and access to files. Continuous monitoring serves as proof for employees’ actions and provides ground for investigation of any suspicious activity.
Compliance Requirements
There is a misunderstanding hackers go only after large enterprises. If you look at the cyber-attacks data, hackers also attack small business systems so their network and resources can be used to attack someone else. Hence, every business small and large needs continuous monitoring to catch any suspicious activity on their network and suppress it before it spins out of control.
Real-Time Information
Tracking data in real-time allows security teams to know about deviations almost instantly. It enables the security teams to identify the application source, information byte, and time during a security assessment.
Based on the threat analysis, security teams can take remediation actions before the threats affect other business processes and systems. Continuous security monitoring enables organizations to estimate their overall security posture in real-time. It also helps them identify weaknesses or know about potential compromises due to a particular configuration setting.
End-To-End Visibility on Device Connectivity
Cloud systems enable employees to access business systems and data from their mobile devices from any place. However, there is always an inherent risk related to device connectivity and cloud systems. There is still a possibility of some unknown device trying to gain access to your cloud environment.
Continuous monitoring allows security teams to detect devices the moment they attempt to connect to the network. This enables organizations to prevent unauthorized devices from gaining access, thereby thwarting any cyber-attack. It also gives insights about connecting devices like its ownership and operating system that allows security teams to take the right reactive and preventive actions.
To sum up, these are some of the benefits of continuous cloud security monitoring.