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concept#Security#Cloud#Architecture#Platform

Cloud Security

Conceptual overview of principles and measures to protect cloud infrastructures, data and services.

Cloud security comprises concepts, processes and technical controls to protect data, identities, platforms and workloads in cloud environments.
Established
High

Classification

  • High
  • Organizational
  • Architectural
  • Intermediate

Technical context

Identity providers (IAM) and single sign-onSIEM / log management systemsCloud provider APIs and policy engines

Principles & goals

Least privilege: Grant minimal rights to users and servicesShared responsibility: Clear separation of responsibilities between CSP and customerDefense in depth: Layered controls rather than single protections
Run
Enterprise, Domain

Use cases & scenarios

Compromises

  • Misconfigurations of storage, networks or IAM lead to data exposure
  • Unclear responsibilities delay response and forensics
  • Insufficient monitoring allows persistent attacks
  • Shift-left security: integrate security checks early in CI/CD
  • Automated compliance checks and policy-as-code
  • Centralized logging and role-based alerting strategies

I/O & resources

  • Inventory of assets, workloads and data classification
  • Permissions and role model for identities
  • Network design and configuration standards
  • Security policies, baselines and automation rules
  • Monitoring and alerting workflows
  • Auditable evidence preservation and compliance reports

Description

Cloud security comprises concepts, processes and technical controls to protect data, identities, platforms and workloads in cloud environments. It covers the shared responsibility model, access control, network and configuration hardening, and monitoring. The goal is to ensure confidentiality, integrity and availability of applications and services running in the cloud.

✔

  • Improved confidentiality and integrity of cloud data
  • Better risk reduction through standardized hardening and automation
  • Meeting regulatory and compliance requirements in cloud operations

✖

  • Portions of responsibility remain with the cloud provider (shared responsibility)
  • Complexity increases with multi-cloud and multi-tenant setups
  • Standardization may require adjustments in specialized use cases

  • MTTD (Mean Time to Detect)

    Average time to detect a security incident.

  • Percentage of compliant workloads

    Share of workloads that meet security baseline and policies.

  • Number of critical misconfigurations

    Count of detected high-severity configuration errors per time period.

SaaS provider with tenant-isolated architecture

Tenant isolation combining IAM policies and network segments with monitoring to reduce risk.

Financial services firm migrates core banking to the cloud

Highest compliance and encryption requirements, dedicated network separation and auditing.

Startup automates secrets management and CI/CD hardening

Integration of secret store, pipeline scans and role-based access rules reduces attack surface.

1

Assess: inventory, risk classification, prioritization

2

Design: define security baseline, IAM and network architecture

3

Implement: introduce automated policies, monitoring and remediation

4

Operate: establish continuous monitoring, testing and improvements

⚠️ Technical debt & bottlenecks

  • Outdated IAM roles and excessive permissions
  • Legacy scripts for configuration management without tests
  • Manual onboarding processes for cloud accounts
IAM complexityMonitoring gapLack of automation
  • Storing sensitive data in public buckets without encryption
  • Unrotated full-access keys in CI/CD pipelines
  • No separation of test and production accounts
  • Unclear shared-responsibility boundaries lead to gaps
  • Relying on manual audits instead of continuous monitoring
  • Missing asset inventory makes prioritization impossible
Cloud architecture and networking skillsIAM design and permission managementSecurity operations and forensic skills
Compliance requirements (privacy, industry standards)Scalability and multi-tenant isolationAvailability and resilience in cloud operations
  • • Cloud provider shared-responsibility boundaries
  • • Limited visibility in managed services
  • • Budget and staffing constraints for security measures