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How to Conduct a Cloud Security Assessment? – 5 Steps

Physical data storage is a thing of the past now. Today, if any business wants to thrive in a fiercely competitive environment, it must make efficient use of technology. It is for this reason that several organizations have shifted their databases online.

This facilitates ease of access as well as seamless sharing, thereby saving time and energy. 

Additionally, you can use various OCR tools to back up the old data on the cloud for ease of reference. However, cloud storage is not all peach.

There is a downside to cloud storage, too. As soon as you back up your data to the cloud, you become vulnerable to cyberattacks. This means that you can lose sensitive information in a matter of seconds. 

Therefore, cloud security should be of paramount interest to your organization. Now, the highest risk level is involved when trying to migrate your cloud data to a different infrastructure.

With improper security, you will most likely lose relevant information in the process. 

Hence, you must hire efficient cloud security professionals to assess the current state of your cloud infrastructure and advise you on the best way forward.

In this article, we will talk about the manner in which a cloud security assessment must be conducted.

How to Conduct a Cloud Security Assessment

Scope of assessment 

Before proceeding with the advanced stage of security assessment, we must understand the basics of our cloud application.

It is crucial that you perform an initial scoping test. This means that you must assess the current state of your cloud application. 

Based on your initial assessment, you will be able to figure out what you must accomplish at the end of the security assessment.

Moreover, determining the scope of the assessment will also pave the way to understanding how you will achieve your goal. Therefore, always start the security assessment with initial scoping.

See also: 4 Ethical Consideration in Cloud Data Protection

Discovery

Discovery is just an extension of the first step, i.e., the initial scoping. Once your team has set down the scope of assessment, you must proceed with the reconnaissance.

During a war, several scouting troops are sent via different mediums to assess the progress of the enemy troop. The report that the recon troops send helps the commander strategize the next move. It is more or less the same in the security assessment. 

Here, reconnaissance essentially means that you must understand the organization’s assets and weaknesses.

This will help you identify the vulnerabilities and how the cloud storage system can be attacked. Remember, reconnaissance/discovery is only made within the scope of assessment.

Vulnerability testing

Once you complete the discovery process, you have a report on the organization’s assets that are potentially under threat at all times.

During vulnerability testing, an auditor tries to look for loopholes in the assets to see how they can be attacked. 

Basically, this step is used to identify the level of risk exposure of the assets. Now, several tools are used by security assessors to exploit the loopholes they find. This is done with a hacker’s mindset because it gives a real-time report on how the cyber attack will pan out.

Cloud Vulnerability Testing Report Download

Reporting

Ideally, the last step of the cloud security assessment is the preparation of a detailed report that is to be passed to the organization.

Now, you must be diligent with vulnerability scanning for the sake of a holistic report. 

After the vulnerability test, you will have to pass down the report to the company officials.

This process is crucial because it helps organizations understand the current state of their cloud infrastructure and the improvements they need to make.

Retesting

Retesting is often ignored by organizations and auditors, but it is a crucial step. Retesting is used for verification purposes to see that the issues identified in the cloud security have been fixed. 

Conclusion

Cloud security assessment must be a part of an organization’s routine maintenance program. It is crucial because, today, all the sensitive information is stored on the cloud, and any attacks thereof can lead to the leakage of information, which will negatively affect the credibility of the organization.

When hiring an agency to do the security audits for a cloud system, ensure that they incorporate the aforementioned 5-step process in their ecosystem. 

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Ashwin S

A cybersecurity enthusiast at heart with a passion for all things tech. Yet his creativity extends beyond the world of cybersecurity. With an innate love for design, he's always on the lookout for unique design concepts.