Cloud network security is a combination of tools, processes, and policies that protect your cloud environments.
While cloud computing offers numerous benefits, securing cloud networks presents unique challenges compared to traditional on-premises environments. And each year, cloud threats proliferate and become more costly. According to IBM, the average cost of a data breach in 2023 was $4.45 million, which clearly shows the pressing need for robust cloud network security measures.
Think of cloud network security as a protective shield that safeguards your applications, data, and underlying infrastructure in the cloud. In this article, we’ll discuss how to strengthen cloud security to protect your assets from unauthorized access, modification, exposure, and misuse. Let’s dive right in.
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The shifting landscape of network security
Traditional corporate network security measures for on-premises data centers mostly focus on guardrails such as perimeter firewalls, securing network boundaries, and regulating traffic, combined with access control mechanisms to prevent unauthorized access. However, with the dynamic and distributed nature of cloud computing, these static defense mechanisms are becoming increasingly inadequate.
Another complication? Cloud environments involve the shared responsibility model, where the service provider secures the cloud infrastructure but customers are expected to leverage available tools and controls to protect their data and applications—and also implement the right access control mechanisms. This shift necessitates a balancing act: maintaining flexibility without compromising on protection.
Furthermore, in cloud deployments, resources can be provisioned and deprovisioned on demand. In addition to VMs, applications can also be deployed on PaaS, microservices, function-as-a-service, and more. Each of these services could expose entry points to your cloud environments for an attacker to exploit. Combined with the ambiguities of the shared responsibility model, the result is an expanded attack surface when compared to static on-premises deployments.
The only solution is to gain visibility into your entire cloud landscape, covering all possible attack entry points to identify and mitigate threats effectively. In the next section, we’ll take a closer look.
Cloud network security threats and risks
Implementing a comprehensive cloud network security strategy requires a clear understanding of the security threats you need to protect your cloud resources from. Without a well-defined security perimeter, it’s impossible to form a strong plan. Here are the top risks to keep in mind:
Misconfigurations: Due to the cloud’s multiple entry points and increased attack surface, even a small overlooked misconfiguration could leave your environments exposed. Be vigilant about missteps in configuring native controls, such as security groups, access controls, and encryption. Owing to the dynamic nature of cloud, these configurations can change frequently or fly under the radar when new resources get created. Regular monitoring and well-defined security baselines for cloud networks can help streamline threat detection, minimizing the risk of security weaknesses going unnoticed.
Data breaches: Data breaches are another major concern. With scalable storage options that are easily accessible from anywhere, the cloud creates a larger pool of data that attackers could target. And because resources in the cloud are connected to each other through the underlying cloud network, lateral movement can intensify data breaches. Hackers can also exploit vulnerabilities in cloud service APIs, which are gateways to cloud resources. (These vulnerabilities could stem from weak authentication protocols, misconfigured access controls, or due to flaws in how the API itself is designed.)
Denial-of-service (DOS) attacks: DOS attacks are another favorite tactic of threat actors. The end goal of a DOS attack is to disrupt critical business applications by overwhelming them with traffic that looks legitimate at the outset. Unless smart controls and protection mechanisms are deployed in the cloud network to identify and prevent DOS attacks, you could be facing serious downtimes, leading to SLA breaches and related complications.
Unauthorized access: Unauthorized access remains a constant threat in the cloud. Cloud users and even administrators can fall prey to phishing scams or brute force attacks to gain access credentials, which can then be used to infiltrate cloud environments.
Core security controls for cloud networks
Because the threat landscape is so varied, securing your cloud network requires a nuanced, multi-layer defense strategy. Here are important measures to take to keep your cloud environments safe:
Network segmentation: Using native controls or third-party solutions lets you create isolated network segments and limit the traffic flow between cloud resources. This way, even if an attacker manages to access one segment, they won’t be able to access other parts of the network.
Security groups and firewalls: Within network segments in the cloud, security groups and firewalls act as vigilant gatekeepers. By leveraging security groups and firewalls, you can implement strict controls that review all incoming and outgoing traffic. Having the right controls in place helps identify attackers trying to exploit your network and gain unauthorized access. Simply put? Security groups and firewalls play a key role in preventing attack patterns such as DOS, lateral movement, and port scanning.
Contextual visibility through monitoring: The modern threat landscape necessitates tools that go beyond simply observing the flow of traffic. You also need to analyze the “who” and “why” behind the network activity to identify if the traffic is legitimate. By correlating aspects such as user identity, access attempts, and resource usage, you can identify patterns that indicate a potential infiltration.
Identity access management (IAM): IAM clearly establishes who can access what in the cloud. It’s best practice to follow the principle of least privilege to ensure that malicious actors can’t manipulate your cloud network security controls. Configuring proper IAM controls and monitoring resource access through continual logging will give you better visibility into any kind of suspicious activity resulting from identity theft, insider threats, or compromised credentials.
How Wiz strengthens cloud network security
Although Wiz is not a network security tool itself, our cloud-native application protection platform (CNAPP) does offer capabilities and integrations to help improve your cloud network security posture:
Effective network exposure visibility
Our platform provides comprehensive network analysis for containers and cloud platforms. Using an agentless approach to analyze cloud network infrastructure objects, such as network interfaces, load balancers, VPCs, and subnets, Wiz pinpoints network exposures.
Next, Wiz simulates these exposures (including open ports/IP addresses and unsecured protocols) through the Wiz Security Graph, a cutting-edge automated attack path analysis tool. The information provided by the Wiz Security Graph provides deep visibility into the possible attack vectors in your cloud deployment. This information is crucial, especially for the high-value assets in your cloud deployment, which are often targeted by attackers.
Identification of misconfigurations
In cloud deployments, resource misconfigurations can lead to compromised resources and lateral movement threats. Wiz’s risk assessment capabilities can identify misconfigurations that could lead to attack methods such as remote code execution (RCE), botnet attacks, and cryptojacking.
Customers get additional context on misconfigurations through correlation with other identified cloud risks, helping you build the right remediation processes. Wiz also helps identify network-related toxic combinations (for example, a VM instance that allows remote access with a network path exposed to the internet).
Threat prioritization
Wiz is augmented by threat intel information powered by Wiz Research. With the Wiz Security Graph, Wiz correlates the signals from these sources to provide a single-pane prioritized risk assessment view.
This intelligence empowers you to take action on the findings that are most likely to be exploited by attackers, streamlining the remediation process. Once a vulnerability surfaces, you can use the remediation capabilities of native cloud services you’ve integrated or set up automated rules specific to your environments, enabling your teams to take quick action.
Streamlined integration
Wiz offers out-of-the-box integration with popular network security tools such as Fortinet, Illumio, Netography, and Netskope:
With Fortinet integration, customers get to benefit from Wiz's deep cloud network exposure visibility and Fortinet’s security enforcement capabilities.
You can seamlessly push threat data from Wiz to Illumio to generate and enforce network security policies to ensure comprehensive protection against threats.
Wiz integration with Netography enriches threat context to accelerate detection and response time.
Integrating comprehensive insights from Wiz with Netskope helps you proactively strengthen security posture across multicloud environments
These integrations provide a holistic view of cloud network security posture by using tools that your security teams are familiar with, while augmenting them with additional capabilities provided by Wiz (such as network exposure visibility, risk management, and attack path simulation).
The bottom line? With Wiz, you can seamlessly gain visibility into your network security posture, identify risks and attack paths, prioritize critical threats, and remediate them.
