Multi-cloud requires a new security strategy

As  companies spread their wings and journey into the cloud, their workloads inevitably spread into multiple cloud services. While multi-cloud  is now seen as a desirable strategy for business, this hasn’t always been the case. Early  approaches to cloud adoption often involved moving workloads into a single public cloud service. Enterprises typically limited themselves in this way in order to reduce the complexity of managing their data. For  companies that tried multi-cloud, their stories were often presented as ones of regret and were used to make a case for staying in a single cloud ecosystem.

Today, more and more  companies are making use of multiple cloud services. While improvements  to cloud management tools in recent years have made this kind of multi-cloud environment feasible, some challenges still remain. Fortunately, three tactics for embracing a multi-cloud environment can be found below. 

When  it comes to cloud – particularly multi-cloud – most of the traditional models of data management and security no longer hold true. Today, data  isn’t confined to a controlled environment on premises. Instead, the expectation is that employees will be able to access corporate data from anywhere, on any device, at any time. This  means that organisations’ information is flowing to various cloud applications and personal devices via infrastructure that they do not own or control. As more cloud services are adopted, monitoring these data flows can become exponentially more challenging. 

Businesses  looking to go multi-cloud must develop a thorough understanding of their data. They must know what it is, where it goes, and who can access it. They also need to rethink the way that they protect against threats and their new malicious tactics. For example, malware embedded in a file that is uploaded to a cloud application can quickly spread to connected devices and cloud services. As such, businesses  need tools that are able to detect threats when they are uploaded to applications and when they are already at rest in the cloud.

Gaining and maintaining cross-app visibility and control over data is a critical piece of the multi-cloud puzzle.