What is cloud compliance?

What is cloud compliance?

Cloud compliance is the process of ensuring that your organization's cloud usage is in accordance with the industry standards and other laws associated with the cloud. These mandates and guidelines can apply to the industry or the geography your organization belongs to. For example, HIPAA regulations are specific to the healthcare industry, and if your organization is based in Europe, the GDPR applies. There are also compliance standards that are followed worldwide, such as those from the ISO.

Why is cloud compliance important?

Here are nine reasons being compliant helps an organization:

1. Brings structure: Precisely defining roles and responsibilities of security individuals is vital. For instance, under certain conditions, the GDPR mandates the appointment of a Data Protection Officer (DPO).
2. Increases risk aversion: Through compliance, organizations are more capable of identifying and mitigating threats.
3. Boosts credibility: An organization's compliance is an indication of its commitment to adhering to industry standards and regulations.
4. Promotes an ethical work environment: All members of an organization are a stakeholder, and compliance policies set clear guidelines and standards for ethical conduct for them.
5. Indicates stronger data protection policies: Cloud security compliance involves putting strong data protection mechanisms like encryption, access controls, and frequent audits in place, and it demonstrates an organization's commitment to privacy and security.
6. Indicates better usage of finances: Compliance ensures the proper allocation of security resources and leads to improved cost management and optimization of security infrastructure investments.
7. Ensures greater flexibility and adaptability: Cloud compliance provides a framework for organizations to implement effective security solutions. These also emphasize flexibility in responding to threats and regulatory updates while encouraging adaptable security solutions.
8. Improved threat detection: Cloud compliance helps ensure faster threat identification through mandated advance threat discovery mechanisms such as intrusion detection systems and anomaly detection algorithms.
9. Competitive advantage: Cloud security compliance enhances an organization's reputation, which leads to new business opportunities by attracting security-conscious customers and boosting customer loyalty.

Non-compliance can lead to huge financial losses, increased risk of data breaches, competitive setbacks and inefficiencies, bad PR, and credibility damage.

Who is responsible for cloud security and compliance?

The cloud security providers and their clients are mutually responsible for achieving security compliance. The shared responsibility model ensures that an organization has the complete picture of accountability by the service provider and the organization.

The service provider should ensure it delivers a compliant cloud platform; the organization is responsible for the security of the data and the applications it uses. Since compliance means multiple processes, testing, and assessments, ultimately it is the responsibility of the organization to ensure that these are in place and followed.

Cloud compliance standards

Cloud compliance standards encompass three key frameworks: cloud compliance, cloud security, and cloud governance. Understanding the differences is crucial for comprehensive cloud management.

Difference between the cloud compliance, cloud security, and cloud governance frameworks

Cloud compliance framework

In this section, we will mainly be describing five major compliance frameworks: HIPAA, PCI DSS, ISO 27001, the GDPR and SOX.

• HIPAA: The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act is a compliance regulation protecting every patient's health information from unauthorized access. To achieve compliance, organizations need to establish systems and controls to ensure that this data is secured. HIPAA mandates that an organization collect, manage, and keep records on the cloud users' successful and unsuccessful login attempts.
• PCI DSS: PCI DSS that stands for the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard is a set of processes and practices designed to ensure that individual's financial data is safe. Being PCI DSS compliant imposes a safe and secure transfer of payment card data.
• ISO 27001: ISO 27001 is a cybersecurity standard that comprises best practices and controls that help organizations protect data by implementing a strong information security management system (ISMS) and the CIA (confidentiality, integrity, and availability) triad. With respect to the cloud, ISO 27001 requires organizations to collect, manage, and store logs of cloud user login activity.
• GDPR: The General Data Protection Regulation focuses primarily on EU member states and the EU economic area, but applies to any organization conducting business in Europe. This compliance was enacted to give European citizens more control over their data and establish data privacy rules. It provides 99 articles categorized into 11 chapters. Complying with these can be tedious and challenging without specialized software.
• SOX: The Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002 requires the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission to define the roles and responsibilities of the various stakeholders involved in corporate financial recording keeping and reporting. It also states that non-compliance will lead to hefty penalties.

Cloud security framework

In this section, we will main discuss six major security frameworks: NIST, FedRAMP, CSA STAR, Well-Architected Framework, CSA CCM, and CIS.

• NIST: The National Institute of Standards and Technology is a non-regulatory federal agency within the U.S. Department of Commerce that establishes compliance standards. The NIST Cybersecurity Framework comprises a set of voluntary security standards designed to guide organizations in managing and mitigating cybersecurity risks.
• FedRAMP: The Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program is a U.S. government initiative aimed at standardizing cloud service assessment, monitoring, and authorization across all federal governments. It serves as a security check for cloud service providers, reducing cloud adoption risks, and encouraging modern cloud technologies. FedRAMP is similar to FISMA's cloud security guidelines for government data protection.
• CSA STAR: The Security, Trust, Assurance and Risk program offered by Cloud Security Alliance is a certification assessment to help confirm if an organization's infrastructure is in line with its Cloud Control Matrix framework. The certifications don't just provide credibility to organizations, they also help establish a form of trust, transparency, and an assurance that the efforts to secure the cloud are in line with industry standards. The program consists of STAR Attestation and STAR Certification, which are extensions of the SOC2 and ISO27001 frameworks respectively, but it also utilizes the CCM framework.
• Well-Architected Framework: These are guidelines and recommendations for cloud architects to construct an infrastructure that is efficient, high performing, and secure for their applications. Though the most popular framework is provided by AWS, Azure, IBM, and Google Cloud have also created these frameworks to guide architects, developers, and administrators.
• CSA CCM: The Cloud Control Matrix from Cloud Security Alliance can be used as a tool to assess your cloud implementation systematically. It is a framework from CSA that contains 16 domains and covers all aspects of cloud technology —from the different frameworks to the industry regulations—that companies would have to comply with. It provides guidance on which security controls should be implemented by which actor within the cloud supply chain.
• CIS: Centre of Internet Security controls, formerly called SANS Critical Security Controls, are a set of 18 control measures or best practices that your organization can adopt for protection against common cyberattacks. Implementing these 18 best practices helps organizations stay cyber safe and proactive:
  1. Inventory and Control of Enterprise Assets
  2. Inventory and Control of Software Assets
  3. Data Protection
  4. Secure Configuration of Enterprise Assets and Software
  5. Account Management
  6. Access Control Management
  7. Continuous Vulnerability Management
  8. Audit Log Management
  9. Email Web Browser and Protections
  10. Malware Defenses
  11. Data Recovery
  12. Network Infrastructure Management
  13. Network Monitoring and Defense
  14. Security Awareness and Skills Training
  15. Service Provider Management
  16. Application Software Security
  17. Incident Response Management
  18. Penetration Testing

Cloud governance framework

There are four major governance frameworks: AWS Cloud Adoption Framework, Microsoft Cloud Adoption Framework, COBIT, and TOGAF.

• AWS CAF: The AWS Cloud Adoption Framework is a set of best practices to use while migrating to the AWS cloud. It acts as a playbook and discusses six areas that need attention during the transition process, namely: Business, people, governance, platform, security, and operations. The first three focuses on the business perspectives, while the latter focuses on technical capabilities. Using the various inputs collected from the different people falling under different areas, an action plan can be generated.
• Microsoft Cloud Adoption Framework: The Microsoft Cloud Adoption Framework functions like AWS CAF. Anyone looking to migrate to Azure can follow Microsoft's Cloud Adoption Framework. This framework focuses on the steps to follow rather than the different areas and people involved like in AWS CAF. The six steps it has developed are: define strategy, plan, be ready, adopt, govern, and manage. Under each step, sub points help the user get into the intricacies of the shift.
• COBIT: The Control Objectives for Information and Related Technologies is an IT governance framework developed by Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA) for IT management and governance. It helps organizations define control objectives, governance, and cloud performance. ISACA also published a book, Controls and Assurance in the Cloud: Using COBIT 5, explaining cloud adoption processes, assessments, and frameworks.
• TOGAF: The Open Group Architecture Framework is an enterprise architecture framework designed to align IT strategies with business goals. It covers a wide range of tools and services, with a core aspect being the Architecture Development Method (ADM). TOGAF is divided into two parts: fundamental content and extended guidance. The ADM provides a step-by-step process for developing enterprise architecture, followed by dynamic topics like evolving best practices.

Cloud compliance best practices

Here are seven things you can do to ensure that your cloud environment remains compliant:

1. Understand your cloud environment, identify where data resides, classify it, and provide only limited access to data that is vital.
2. Encrypt all sensitive data and store it in a single location with strong security. Or you can also go for diversification, where you divide all your data into different segments and provide a different set of access controls. Encourage an environment of Zero Trust.
3. Enable continuous monitoring and a system that can send alerts in case of a deviation from normalcy.
4. Identify all the compliances you need to adhere to, and conduct frequent checks to stay on top.
5. Know your responsibilities and conduct awareness sessions to let others know what their responsibilities are.
6. Use compliance management tools that can help simplify your audit processes.
7. Understand and maintain good relationships with your cloud service provider to ensure you and your provider are on the same page.

What is compliance risk?

Compliance risk is the financial, legal, and reputational threat that is borne by a company experiencing a compliance breach. To ensure that an organization is risk averse, it might need to follow a few risk management practices. In the cloud, since there are multiple entities involved, managing risk can be tedious. However, here are a few things you can do to ensure that your organization is risk free:

1. Identify the various risks, on both the cloud service provider and user end, and create a risk management framework. Define who is responsible for what, and ideate on the various risks associated with the responsibilities.
2. Ensure you have backup plans in case something goes wrong.
3. Conduct risk assessments frequently.
4. Ensure your cloud security is strong. Misconfigurations, unauthorized access, and insecure APIs are few commonly seen security risks that linger in a system.

How to meet cloud compliance regulations

There are many software options available to make compliance easy. For example, Log360, the SIEM solution offered by ManageEngine, provides predefined reports for more than 20 compliance mandates. Most compliance requirements including PCI DSS, HIPAA, ISO 27001, the GDPR, and NIST, share a common framework for security controls. These include privileged user monitoring, sensitive data monitoring, data protection, and incident response. All you need to do is enable the predefined report necessary for your organization to be compliant. You can learn more about how Log360 Cloud can help you achieve compliance here.