How the Multicloud Era Affects Data Security

Organizations are still coming to terms with the complexity of data distribution across the growing number of datastores within their cloud environments. In transferring their data to the cloud, they may have expected their cloud data footprint to be similar to their previous footprint, with the same number of datastores and data centers, on a single cloud provider of their choice. As their data sprawl increases, this is no longer the case.

As in many enterprise considerations, the choice between single or multicloud providers may pit security and business needs against each other. While security and compliance teams focus on keeping data and assets in check, making the case for using fewer data storage technologies thus reducing the level of complexity involved in protecting the data, business needs demand the agility, flexibility and variety of features which a single technology or even a single cloud provider cannot provide. Organizations are already aware of the single cloud approach’s general limitations - in features, cost and performance - and it now expands to data as well, making the ‘one-stop shop’ solution detrimental to business needs and generally very short-sighted.

While the distribution of data across several cloud-hosted platforms and technologies drives efficiency and scaling processes, it also introduces a host of new security challenges as data becomes less centralized and begins flowing on multiple clouds. As the organization shifts to multicloud solutions, its security mechanisms become more complex as data sprawl adapts to the cloud. Security teams are left scrambling to identify, locate and itemize their data across these locations, map its use - which they can no longer adequately predict - and abstract the many layers, controls and functionalities each new technology introduces - as well as their inherent risks and limitations. Instead of spending their time, effort and focus on improving security, they find themselves spending it on honing their technology-specific set of expertise.

Leveraging the multicloud approach must include solutions that map and cover the full breadth of security risks in data migration to multicloud services. Some cloud data security solutions (AWS Macie and Azure’s Purview for example) cover only a subset of data storage technologies or are only relevant for the specific cloud provider without accounting for the anticipated exponential growth of data in the cloud or other technologies used by the organization.

As organizations began leveraging multicloud infrastructure, new security capabilities were introduced. Cloud Security Posture Management solutions offer identification and remediation tools to discover and assess misconfigurations and security risks with a single solution across multiple providers. Similarly, a new and comprehensive approach to data security is now imperative. Eureka’s Cloud Data Security Posture Management solution supports organizations’ cloud migration and enables them to keep their data secure and compliant - regardless of the technology behind it - while simultaneously making management of this data easier for security teams, engineers and compliance teams. This is accomplished by first providing deep visibility across all data stores and technologies, implementing a chosen data security policy within the entire environment and providing continuous assessment and alerts on policy violations for all data stores.

In the multicloud era, organizations cannot afford to choose security over business benefits - or the other way around. Providing a sound and secure foundation for data to be used and managed in order to improve and enhance business processes across all technologies is now a must-have feature of the modern workplace.

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