It is not a secret that cloud computing is among the most valuable components for a 2024 operational business.
O-Reilly conducted a study, and from their report, more than 90% of businesses and organizations use cloud services.
The report also shows that 45% of the respondents use a private cloud, while two-thirds using a public one. The business world has marveled even as services like AWS, Azure, and GCP own up the cloud space.
However, these modern-day solutions have created a loophole for cybersecurity threats, necessitating the use of trustworthy measures to secure cloud data.
There are a number of security measures that cloud computing platforms can take in order to secure data.
For example, the AWS platform uses s3 security to secure S3 data from unauthorized access, messing with it, and loss. This security system uses AES-256 to encrypt all new objects by default to secure data at rest.
In addition to the cryptography security, companies employ a zero trust security model to ensure that this data is not easily accessed by malicious actors inside and outside the company premises. But someone would wonder, what is Zero Trust?
What Is Zero Trust?
This security model works on the “never believe, always verify” principle. This one emphasizes the need to verify every access request, regardless of its origin.
This security approach helps deal with cybersecurity risks resulting from various components of current enterprise networks.
The security protocol follows a set of verifications, authorizations and validations that apply to all users, whether inside or outside of the company’s network.
This allows for proper configuration and stance of the protocol before granting access to data.
Key Statistics, Market Growth And Projections
The global market for zero trust security has been expanding at a tremendous rate owing to different trends and the increase in the number of cyberattacks.
Concepts such as Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) and Choose Your Own Device (CYOD) have been on the forefront in driving the growth.
A report by Grand View Research showed that the estimated value of the market in 2022 was approximately USD 24.84 billion. The report also shows an anticipated CAGR of 16.6% from 2023 to 2030.
On the other hand, cyber threats have been on the rise as criminals try to infiltrate various vulnerabilities in the IT infrastructure of organizations.
A study shows that there were over 2,300 cyberattacks in 2023, a 72% increase in data breaches since 2021.
In another report compiled by Expert Insights, 45% of all breaches were cloud-based, and 80% of companies reported at least one cloud security incident within the last one year.
Because of such statistics, it has become necessary for companies to turn to secure protocols like zero trust architecture, which helps manage data loss through such breaches.
How Does Zero Trust Work?
The zero trust framework uses a combination of technologies to make the identity of a system or user. These technologies include:
- Identity protection
- Risk-based multi-factor authentication
- Robust cloud workload technology
- Next-generation endpoint security
Unlike traditional “trust models” that give direct access to data to users within the perimeter of an organization, the zero trust architecture treats everyone equally, whether you are an outsider or inside the company system.
Well, the model constantly checks and confirms whether the user and their device have the proper authority to access the data in the cloud system.
In fact, this has helped deal with malicious internal actors who put organizations at risk.
Zero Trust Principles
The concept of the zero trust architecture is subjected to five principles:
- Asset protection: This model assumes that attackers can bypass the perimeter cloud security strategy.
- Because of this, zero trust secures cloud components by asking for ongoing authorization before granting access, which restricts lateral movement and hides the network.
- The great thing about this is that the organization’s assets remain secure even after a hack.
- Because of this, zero trust secures cloud components by asking for ongoing authorization before granting access, which restricts lateral movement and hides the network.
- Always verify: Before granting access to any system or app on the cloud, the model has to continually authenticate and validate all users and devices.
- The system uses protocols like multi-factor authentication (MFA) and single sign-on (SSO) to provide additional protection when logging in.
- Never trust: The system can only trust a person after they have been authenticated. It doesn’t matter whether the originating network or source is used; every user is subjected to the same identification, validation, and authentication process.
- Auditing and monitoring: The model allows the security team to monitor and manage users remotely. It is vividly clear that the team is able to view users’ logins, locations, and application activities and access all logs.
- In case of a hack, you can easily trace the session recordings and complete audit trials, which can help with regulatory compliance.
- The new perimeter is identity: Unlike traditional security architecture that grants access to anyone on the network, including hackers, zero trust needs to identify any user or device that requests access to cloud components.
Well, as you can see, cybersecurity is an important aspect of any organization, even as technology continually advances.
The introduction of zero trust architecture has improved the security measures for cloud-based activities by ensuring that all users and devices are thoroughly scrutinized and validated before gaining access.
Since cloud computing is an essential element in today’s world, its security has to be heightened to prevent malicious players from accessing sensitive company data.
