Over the last decade, we’ve seen a significant shift in the industry toward cloud computing, as many businesses opt to use cloud-native services. This shift has allowed organizations to take advantage of infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), and software as a service (SaaS) — all of which deliver increased scalability, cost-effectiveness, flexibility and improved efficiency.
While customers use various cloud service providers, their primary concern remains data security. In the current landscape, failure is unacceptable, and noncompliance with regulations leads to stiff penalties. Most critically, noncompliance erodes customer trust, which businesses can’t afford to lose.
Cloud compliance refers to the process of ensuring that an organization's use of cloud-based services, resources and technologies adheres to relevant laws and regulations governing data privacy, security and management. Achieving cloud compliance helps organizations mitigate risks and protect sensitive information.
For example, the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), which is used to ensure security for payments made with debit or credit cards, has requirements for cloud deployments. The same goes for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) in the healthcare industry.
Security breach headlines continue to roll out, reminding us of the importance of cloud compliance. Consider the Sina Weibo breach, for example. After hackers infiltrated the social media platform, they sold the personal data of approximately 538 million users — names, site usernames, gender, location, phone numbers — on the dark web. U.S. voters took a hit with the S3 bucket breach that resulted in the exposure of personal data of nearly 198 million Americans. And just last month, T-Mobile suffered its second data breach of 2023 after a data leak revealed the PINs, full names and phone numbers of over 800 customers. Incidents like these often result from poorly implemented cloud compliance policies.
It's imperative to realize that, while the foundational data infrastructure provided by the cloud service provider is secure, the customer assumes responsibility for data security and compliance assurance.
Cloud service providers follow a shared responsibility model, where they take care of the security of the cloud infrastructure, including the physical data centers, network and hardware. But customers retain responsibility for securing their data and configuring compliance controls within the cloud services they use, such as S3 buckets, virtual machines or databases.
For example, when creating an S3 bucket on AWS, the default settings may not be compliant with specific regulations or security requirements. It’s the customer's responsibility to configure the appropriate access controls, encryption, logging and other security measures to ensure the S3 bucket meets their compliance needs.
Implementing an effective cloud compliance policy is crucial for organizations to ensure the security and regulatory adherence of their cloud environments. Let's explore some of these key factors:
Prisma Cloud provides the industry's broadest security compliance coverage for infrastructure, workloads and applications throughout the development lifecycle and across hybrid and multicloud environments.
Helping executive teams and security engineers effectively manage and maintain compliance, Prisma Cloud provides the following capabilities:
Continuous Monitoring
Prisma Cloud continuously monitors cloud resources and assesses their compliance status in real time. It automatically detects changes that impact compliance and can alert security teams to take corrective actions.
Granular Visibility
Prisma Cloud offers granular visibility into cloud resources, providing detailed information about individual assets and their compliance status. This allows security teams to drill down into specific assets to understand the exact reasons behind noncompliance.
Compliance Reporting
Prisma Cloud generates compliance reports that provide a comprehensive view of the compliance status of assets in the cloud environment. These reports highlight noncompliant resources, misconfigurations and policy violations, enabling organizations to identify and address compliance gaps.
Remediation Recommendations
Prisma Cloud provides actionable recommendations and remediation steps to address compliance issues. It suggests specific configuration changes or security controls that organizations should implement to bring assets into compliance with industry regulations and organizational policies.
Prisma Cloud helps customers to achieve and maintain compliance within their cloud environments. Significant regulations supported by Prisma Cloud include:
Bottom line: Cloud compliance is a crucial aspect of adopting and using cloud services securely and responsibly. It involves adhering to regulatory requirements, industry standards and best practices to ensure the protection of sensitive data and build trust with customers.
Get real-time and historical views into your compliance status for hosts, containers and serverless functions with Prisma Cloud. Start your free 30-day test drive today — and learn how customers have used Prisma Cloud to improve the security posture of their organizations.
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