Cloud governance revisited
Cloud governance is made up of controls, processes, and policies that help improve the management of cloud infrastructure.
Effective cloud governance is a game-changer. For starters, it lowers cloud costs and provides an extra dose of operational efficiency and development agility. It also helps businesses avoid security and compliance complexities. The overall result? Smarter cloud investments, higher productivity, and more control and visibility across multi-cloud estates.
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Best practices for cloud governance
Cloud governance best practices are guidelines and strategies designed to effectively manage and optimize cloud resources, ensure security, and align cloud operations with business objectives.
Cloud governance best practices are guidelines and strategies organizations use to manage and control their cloud environments effectively. These practices ensure that the use of cloud resources aligns with organizational goals, adheres to security and compliance standards, optimizes costs, and mitigates risks.
By implementing the following best practices, organizations can create a robust framework that balances the benefits of cloud computing with the need for control, security, and efficiency.
1. Assign roles and responsibilities
To drive cloud governance improvements, you’ll need a cross-functional team of experts and key stakeholders. This team will design, implement, monitor, and continuously improve your organization’s cloud governance posture.
Who should be on this team? Members from every branch of your organization, from IT operations and cloud security to compliance and legal management. Including cloud architects, analysts, engineers, administrators, and security personnel will help you cover all bases.
2. Assess your organization’s compliance requirements
Achieving regulatory compliance is important but not at the cost of productive and consistent cloud operations. To strike this balance, start by gaining a thorough understanding of your company’s regulatory requirements. Once you get a sense of what frameworks and laws you need to follow, you can build relevant processes, policies, and security controls.
If your business operates in a highly regulated industry like healthcare or manufacturing, you’ll have a few more compliance boxes to tick. For instance, if you’re a healthcare organization, you’ll need to follow HIPAA’s rules around PHI management.
And if your business ports or stores data overseas, you’ll have to acknowledge data sovereignty requirements. You’re on the hook for the local laws of wherever your data goes.
3. Use governance frameworks to define policies
Cloud governance policies set the rules around the management of your company’s cloud operations, costs, data security and privacy, and compliance.
You don’t have to start from scratch when defining new cloud governance policies. By using globally recognized governance frameworks, you can quickly and easily craft policies that are just right for your organization.
Examples of governance frameworks that can help you define your policies include:
COBIT 5
COSO
ITIL v3
NIST RMF and CSF
ISO/IEC 38500 & ISO/IEC 27017
4. Assess cloud data security and privacy risks
We know that data is an organization’s most valuable asset. But that data is riddled with vulnerabilities and risks, any of which can cause data breaches, privacy violations, and legal penalties.
Then there’s also the risk of mishandling sensitive data, such as PII, PHI, and PCI, which can result in severe reputational damage and legal consequences. When it comes to data security and privacy, don’t play with fire: Conduct thorough data risk assessments and remediate the most critical data risks.
In the cloud, the most common data security risks include misconfigurations, poor visibility, shadow data, undiscovered attack paths, data leakage, and network exposure.
A powerful DSPM solution can help you discover sensitive data, prioritize risks, and ensure swift remediation.
5. Manage cloud costs
According to Gartner, 69% of IT leaders say that their organizations went over their cloud budgets in 2023. It’s a familiar story, but the issue with overrunning cloud budgets is that it undercuts the potential cost savings benefits of the cloud.
The solution? Start simple: Monitor cloud expenses, identify unnecessary costs, and devise ways to reduce those costs.
Another key move is to stop cloud sprawl early. If cloud sprawl gets out of hand, costs can spiral very quickly. Track how you use resources, get rid of tools you aren't using, and establish a list of pre-approved tools.
Siloed tools and workflows can also add to cloud costs. You can break down silos by integrating cloud applications, resources, and infrastructure. This will result in a more unified and well-orchestrated cloud ecosystem.
Last but not least, revisiting pricing models with your various cloud service providers (CSPs) will reveal whether you’re paying for any cloud compute or storage that you don’t need.
6. Optimize identity access management (IAM)
If you want strong cloud governance, you’ll need complete control over who has access to cloud resources. Even the smallest IAM vulnerabilities, like weak credentials or excessive permissions, can result in attack paths to crown jewel data. If vulnerabilities fester and mature, small issues could snowball into large-scale incidents.
To configure the best access controls for your cloud environments, provision a legitimate digital identity for every user. Next, introduce strong authorization and authentication protocols. Enforcing zero-trust principles like least privilege and “never trust, always verify” are good ways to move toward stricter access controls.
You should leverage a strong CIEM solution to get rid of access-related risks.
7. Introduce automation
The cloud simply moves too fast to govern manually. This is where automation mechanisms can be a huge help. They can give you complete control of your cloud without overwhelming your teams. (After all, your teams should focus on their strengths instead of wasting time on demotivating manual tasks.)
Many use cases can benefit from automation, but we recommend focusing on these three first:
Policy enforcement: Policy as code (PaC) and dynamic policy engines can automate the enforcement of security and compliance policies and frameworks.
Continuous compliance monitoring: A powerful cloud compliance solution will automatically and continuously assess your compliance posture against global and industry standard frameworks as well as custom frameworks.
Remediation: Automation rules can auto-remediate critical misconfigurations and cloud incidents in real time.
8. Continuously monitor and optimize your cloud governance posture
Your cloud governance should evolve, just like your cloud environments and capabilities. That’s the only way to meet new cloud requirements and tackle cloud-native risks. Begin by monitoring your cloud governance processes, policies, and practices, and by generating reports. Then, work with key stakeholders to decide on the right KPIs and metrics to gain an accurate understanding of what your cloud looks like now.
Keeping your cloud governance posture, tools, and capabilities fresh can help your organization stay one step ahead of the curve and tackle any business, security, or compliance hurdles that come your way.
Challenges of implementing cloud governance
Lack of in-house knowledge: As important as the cloud is today, the global demand for cloud skills exceeds available (and affordable) talent. As many businesses are realizing, cloud experts aren’t easy to find. Every new cloud governance policy or process demands intricate cloud knowledge and skill sets, which means that enterprises with scarce in-house talent will struggle to introduce new cloud governance models.
Fast-paced and complex environments: Cloud environments change constantly, making complete and consistent visibility a challenge. Without visibility and control of the cloud, it’s impossible to enforce the principles of cloud governance.
Mounting compliance requirements: The increasing number of compliance obligations can be a headache for businesses. With compliance failures, even the best-case scenarios could land some heavy blows. In multi-cloud and multi-tenant architectures, complying with frameworks like GDPR, PCI DSS, and CCPA can be messy, especially without the right platforms and tools.
Relentless threats: Upgrading cloud governance isn’t easy under the constant threat of cyberattacks and cloud incidents. In 2024 alone, companies like AT&T and Snowflake experienced huge data breaches and a cascade of heavy consequences. While cloud governance is non-negotiable, the path to stronger governance is filled with security and compliance landmines.
Resistance to cultural shifts: Establishing a cloud governance framework needs more than just technical improvements. A complete cultural overhaul has to take place. For this, businesses need the commitment of every single person in the organization—not always the easiest thing to secure.
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How Wiz can boost your cloud governance posture
You might be wondering how you can go about improving your cloud governance posture now that you know all the essentials. Well, one thing is clear: You need a powerful tool. Wiz, an all-in-one cloud security platform with unified DSPM, CIEM, CSPM, CDR, AI-SPM, and compliance capabilities, is exactly what you’re looking for. With Wiz, you can strengthen every pillar and principle of cloud governance, from security to compliance.
Wiz helps you remediate complex cloud security problems in just a few simple clicks and without a single line of code. With a mix of built-in frameworks and customizable templates, Wiz’s use case potential is unmatched.
Also, Wiz doesn’t waste any time on non-critical threats, which means your teams won’t be burdened with irrelevant alerts. By automatically discovering sensitive data and remediating the most critical issues, Wiz reduces alert fatigue and empowers your teams to be better stewards of your cloud environments.
Get a demo today to see how Wiz can enhance your cloud governance posture.
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