Today’s cloud and security teams are asked to do more with less.
Although the capabilities and cost of select SecOps solutions have kept pace with the widespread adoption of the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Cloud, many organizations try to protect their expanding cloud workloads without the proper support. Learn about the top challenges teams are facing when building in the cloud and how to solve them.
Content Summary
Introduction
Section 1 – Server management
Section 2 – The human element
Section 3 – The wrong tools for the job
Bringing it all together
Introduction
It’s simple: Today’s cloud and security teams are asked to
Do more with less
Although the capabilities and cost of select SecOps solutions have kept pace with the widespread adoption of the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Cloud, many organizations try to protect their expanding cloud workloads without the proper support.
Protecting more, with less resources
Organizations that have moved to the cloud expect IT staff to protect more servers and resources than ever before but often without the budget, training, or tools needed to do the job well. Their teams are forced to be firefighters, instead of taking advantage of AWS’ innovative nature, which makes it difficult to focus on strategic goals.
62% of CIOs say that one of their top challenges is finding a balance between day-to-day operations and the time they need to pursue innovation and business initiatives. Source: Data Centers in Flux: The IT Optimization Challenge, Q3 2016, IDG Research, 2016
What challenges are your cloud and security teams facing? they can affect your business.
- Server management: Too many servers, applications, and data to effectively manage.
- The human element: Lack of specific cloud security skills and training.
- The wrong tools for the job: Inadequate and legacy technology doesn’t support business goals.
In the pages ahead, we’ll take a look at the root causes of these challenges and see how
Section 1 – Server management
Too many servers, applications, and data to effectively manage overall security
It all starts with the servers.
As many organizations expand and new projects launch, they add IT infrastructure incrementally to meet short‐term needs. While AWS makes it easy to add servers as needed, this can result in a lot of manual effort from IT teams to secure these servers.
About 30% of all servers are unused – That’s an estimated 10 million “comatose servers” worldwide
Too often, this patchwork approach results in an underutilized, expensive network that stands in the way of long-term goals.
Business impacts of complicated server management
Businesses that suffer from complicated server management:
- Lack real-time visibility into their security state.
- Spend too much time on server management.
- Can’t respond to security incidents promptly.
Security threats are becoming more frequent
Underutilized servers and lack of security controls can cost you in more ways than one.
In 2016 82K Approximately 82,000 serious cyber security incidents occurred in 2016 and the average cost of a data breach is around $4 million
Keep up with changing cloud environments
- Create a cross-functional security solution that provides better insight into each department.
- Increase cloud workload visibility across teams by adopting modern tools and processes.
- Integrate security automation into DevOps practices, ensuring security is baked in, not bolted on.
Trend Micro Deep Security for AWS, powered by XGen™ provides a simplified, single platform that gives you and your IT team complete visibility. This enables cloud and security teams to create unified event streams to proactively, rather than reactively, handle security incidents across all departments.
Section 2 – The human element
Lack of specific cloud security skills and training
The traditional role of the IT security team has expanded.
Many organizations now expect their DevOps team to handle both deployment and cloud security. Without adequate skills and training, the demands of this hybrid “DevSecOps” role can be overwhelming—and IT professionals know it.
The #1 cloud challenge in 2016: Lack of resources and expertise. Source: State of the Cloud Report, RightScale, 2016
Managing cloud workload security
Cloud workloads have vastly different protection requirements than on-premises data centers do. They need to be managed by staff with appropriate skills and adequate training.
Your deployment specialists and coders may be experts in their field, but that expertise may not apply to cloud security operations.
In 2016, 46% of organizations had a shortage of cyber security skills. Source: Through the Eyes of Cyber Security Professionals, ESG/ISSA, 2016
Looking within your IT team for the talent you need
To achieve the right “generalist & specialist” blend, IT teams should:
- Join professional organizations
- Attend specific training courses
- Receive on-the-job mentoring
- Earn additional security certifications
AWS offers a range of security certifications to help your team learn how to better operate within your cloud environment. Certifications will not only improve the overall knowledge of your IT team, but also allow you to gauge how familiar your team is with current and emerging security trends.
Enabling greater automation with AWS
Both in deployment and in protection.
Without Automation: Your overworked cloud and security teams must rely on time-consuming, error-prone processes that introduce irregularities and expose you to the risk of compliance failure.
With Automation: Your cloud and security teams can deploy and defend environments based on standardized, approved templates and rules from Trend Micro—which saves time and improves legal and security compliance.
Section 3 – The wrong tools for the job
Legacy technology was not built with the cloud in mind
How do the security tools you use everyday impact your business?
Every business must strike the right balance between cost, usability, and effectiveness when considering cloud security options.
Unfortunately, too many organizations don’t invest in the proper technology to ensure the longevity of their business.
They rely on aging or ineffective legacy systems or a patchwork of uncoordinated tools to manage data security operations – and therein lies the danger.
The danger with sticking with what you know
Visibility and vigilance are the keys to cloud security, but yesterday’s security solutions struggle to provide real-time insights into your workloads.
Legacy security:
- Lack capabilities to protect cloud and hybrid workloads
- Unable to provide provide visibility into dynamic cloud environments
Multiple-interface security:
- Occur as systems are added incrementally over time
- Rely on numerous tools for management and reporting instead of a single view
Impact of inadequate security systems
Legacy or poorly structured security security systems can drain your productivity too.
- Lack of automation forces IT staff to manually perform processes like software and policy updates.
- Minimal integration with third‐party software creates inefficiencies and errors.
- Scans and patches slow down your entire system.
Impact of inadequate IT budgets
Organizations with small IT budgets run the risk of data security breaches.
Fines for PCI DSS compliance violations: $5,000 to over $100,000 per month + increased transaction fees from financial providers. Source: PCI Compliance Guide, PCI ComplianceGuide.org
Fines for violating HIPAA rules: $100 to $1.5 million per incident + possible criminal penalties. Source: HIPAA Viola5ons and Enforcement, American Medical Associa:on
Overhauling your entire infrastructure at once can be challenging. Trend Micro simplifies this with its API integration, allowing you to make the most out of your current tools, and gracefully “age out” your current software.
More cloud visibility, fewer security failures
Analysts predict that by 2018, the 60% of enterprises that implement appropriate cloud visibility and control tools will experience 33% fewer security failures. Source: Gartner Predicts 2017: Cloud Security, Gartner, 2016
Bringing it all together
Trend Micro Deep Security for AWS, powered by XGen
Together with AWS, Trend Micro helps you solve for difficult server management, lack of cloud-specific skills within your IT team, and inadequate tooling.
Trend Micro is an Advanced Technology Partner in the AWS Partner Network (APN), with a solution that complements the dynamic nature of the AWS Cloud.
Adopting Deep Security for AWS provides your IT team with an automated, scalable solution with maximum workload security and minimal effort required. Eliminate the burden on your IT resources to catch up to evolving security threats, and allow them to focus on core business initiatives.
Server management
Adopt an automated security solution to ensure all data, applications, and servers are protected.
Deep Security for AWS, powered by XGen helps you control complicated server management. Increased cloud workload visibility, combined with a cross-functional security solution, provides you with better insight into the security of each department within your organization.
Leverage Deep Security for AWS to empower your IT teams to create proactive, unified event streams to address security incidents across all departments.
The human element
Increasing your cloud security capabilities doesn’t mean increasing your head count
With the right technology in place, your cloud and security staff can focus on work that helps grow your business instead of putting out fires. Deep Security for AWS, powered by XGen™ has the tools you need to implement an automated security solution. Automating security frees up time for your IT team, as they can deploy standard and approved templates to quickly and easily protect your environment.
Designed with cloud security in mind, Deep Security for AWS seamlessly integrates with your environment, protecting your workloads by working with your DevOps teams instead of against them.
Deep Security for AWS leverages a variety of AWS services to enhance your cloud experience:
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2)
- Secure, resizable cloud compute capacity
- Obtain and spin up new instances quickly
Amazon Elastic Load Balancing (Amazon ELB)
- Automatic routing of incoming traffic
- Achieve application fault tolerance
Auto Scaling
- Scales Amazon EC2 capacity automatically
- Maintain application availability
Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS)
- Automated tasks such as hardware provisioning
- Set up, operate, and scale a relational database
Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3)
- Durable, scalable object storage
- Store and retrieve any amount of data on the cloud
Source: Trend Micro Incorporated
