Cloud Security: How Your Approach to the Cloud Affects Your Security

As organizations transition to the cloud, the question of security often becomes a concern. How you migrate your workloads—whether through a lift-and-shift approach or by adopting cloud-native architectures—directly impacts your security posture. Every method offers unique benefits, obstacles, and weaknesses, highlighting the importance of understanding their impact on your comprehensive security strategy. 

In this article, we discuss the distinctions between cloud-native utilization and simply hosting your existing system on the cloud, examine their security implications, and provide insights into how businesses can mitigate risks to achieve strong cloud protection.

What Is Lift-and-Shift?

The lift-and-shift approach, or cloud-based rehosting, entails transferring applications and workloads from on-premises infrastructure to the cloud with minimal modifications. In this model, the cloud essentially functions as a virtual data center. 

Benefits of Lift-and-Shift

• Speed of Migration: Applications are moved quickly without requiring significant modifications.
• Familiarity: Retaining the original application architecture simplifies management for existing teams.
• Cost Savings: Organizations can phase out on-premises infrastructure while continuing to use their existing applications effectively.

Security Challenges

Replicating On-Prem Security Issues

When migrating to the cloud using a lift-and-shift approach, existing on-premises security issues, such as misconfigured settings, outdated software, or weak access controls, are often carried over, increasing risks in the new environment. If left unaddressed, these vulnerabilities can expose cloud systems to unauthorized access or cyberattacks. To mitigate this, organizations should identify and fix security flaws before migration and adopt cloud-native tools for monitoring and enhancing security post-migration.

Limited Optimization for Cloud Security

The lift-and-shift approach, while convenient for quickly migrating workloads to the cloud, often overlooks the robust security capabilities unique to cloud-native environments. Features like network security groups (NSGs) provide intuitive segmentation, enabling organizations to easily isolate resources and minimize attack surfaces. Similarly, cloud-based key vaults simplify the management and security of sensitive credentials, encryption keys, and certificates, which can be cumbersome to implement on-premises.

In addition, cloud-native IAM solutions offer advanced capabilities such as seamless integration with cloud services, dynamic scaling, and policy automation, making it easier to enforce least privilege access and manage permissions effectively. Without tailoring applications to fully integrate these tools, organizations miss opportunities to strengthen their security posture, leaving gaps that can be exploited. 

To address life-and-shift limitations, businesses should reconfigure workloads post-migration to align with cloud-native security best practices and fully leverage the protective capabilities of their chosen cloud platform.

Shared Responsibility Misunderstanding

Many organizations mistakenly believe cloud providers handle all security, overlooking their own responsibilities for securing applications, data, and user access. While providers manage the infrastructure, clients must address issues like access controls, data encryption, and activity monitoring. Misunderstanding this shared responsibility can leave systems vulnerable to breaches, highlighting the need for clear role definitions and strong client-side security practices.

What Is Cloud-Native?

Cloud-native architectures fully leverage the features and capabilities of cloud environments. Applications are purpose-built or re-architected specifically for the cloud, utilizing microservices, serverless computing, and containerization (deploying software by packaging an application’s code and required files and libraries, to ensure compatibility across various platforms and infrastructures).

Benefits of Cloud-Native

• Scalability: Applications are designed to scale dynamically based on demand.
• Built-In Resilience: Cloud-native systems often include redundancy and failover mechanisms by default.
• Enhanced Security Features: Modern identity and access management, encryption, and compliance tools are integrated into the design.

Security Challenges

Complex Attack Surface

Cloud-native environments expand the attack surface by introducing new elements like APIs, serverless functions, and containerized workloads, each with its own potential vulnerabilities. APIs, while essential for communication between services, can be exploited if poorly secured. Serverless functions, designed for efficiency and scalability, may rely on security measures implemented within the application logic, leaving them vulnerable to flaws. Similarly, the applications invoking these serverless functions may introduce security risks, such as inadequate authentication or data validation.

Containerized workloads, on the other hand, can be targeted through misconfigurations or vulnerabilities in the container images themselves. These interconnected components, if not adequately secured and monitored, create additional entry points for attackers. This makes it crucial for organizations to adopt comprehensive security measures tailored to the unique risks of cloud-native architectures, such as securing APIs, implementing robust authentication, and regularly reviewing application security.

Blurred Lines in the Shared Responsibility Model

The flexibility of cloud-native solutions often blurs the lines in the shared responsibility model, making it difficult to distinguish between client and provider security roles. While providers secure the infrastructure, clients must handle tasks like data protection, access controls, and configuration. Misunderstanding these responsibilities can lead to vulnerabilities, highlighting the need for organizations to clearly define their security duties and adopt strong client-side practices.

Increased Need for Expertise

Cloud-native environments demand higher expertise, as managing and securing these dynamic systems involves navigating complex technologies such as container orchestration, serverless computing, and API security. Unlike traditional IT setups, cloud-native solutions require a strong understanding of cloud-specific concepts like shared responsibility models, identity and access management (IAM), and infrastructure-as-code. Without the right skills, organizations may struggle to implement robust security measures, leaving them vulnerable to misconfigurations and sophisticated cyber threats. 

This increased need for specialized knowledge underscores the importance of training internal teams, hiring skilled professionals, or partnering with experienced cloud security providers to ensure a well-protected and efficiently managed environment.

How Cloud Migration Strategies Affect Your Security

Misconfigurations and Vulnerabilities

Lift-and-Shift

Organizations may overlook the need to adjust their security settings after migration. This can leave storage buckets, databases, or virtual machines vulnerable. For example, improperly configured permissions in a lift-and-shift setup could result in unauthorized access to confidential data.

Cloud-Native

Cloud-native systems have advanced security features, but their complexity, like managing microservices, protecting APIs, and setting up flexible resources, can lead to mistakes. These mistakes, such as open access points or too many permissions, can increase security risks.

Segmentation

Segmentation is key to keeping both lift-and-shift and cloud-native environments secure. Without proper segmentation, attackers could move between resources, like jumping from a loosely protected development area to a sensitive production system. Strong segmentation helps keep different parts of the cloud separate, reducing the damage if something goes wrong.

Identity Management and Access Control

Lift-and-Shift

Many IAM systems still use outdated models that don’t fit well with modern cloud practices, leaving gaps in how users are authenticated and authorized.

Cloud-Native

Cloud-native systems prioritize IAM, but their reliance on identity systems also makes them a prime target for attackers; poorly implemented IAM policies can result in privilege escalation attacks.

Shared Responsibility Model

Lift-and-Shift

Businesses mistakenly believe the cloud provider manages all aspects of their security, ignoring their part in protecting applications and data. This mistake can expose critical vulnerabilities if left unaddressed.

Cloud-Native

While businesses using cloud-native architectures tend to understand the shared responsibility model better, the added complexity of these systems can still create blind spots.

Scalability and Security Monitoring

Lift-and-Shift

Scaling applications in a lift-and-shift environment often requires manual adjustments, which can delay responses to security incidents.

Cloud-Native

Cloud-native architectures excel in scalability, but monitoring these dynamic environments requires advanced tools to track changes and detect anomalies in real time.

4 Best Practices for Securing Lift-and-Shift and Cloud-Native Environments

1. Understand the Shared Responsibility Model

Regardless of your approach, it’s essential to understand who handles what regarding security—your responsibilities versus your cloud providers’. For more information, providers like AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud offer detailed guidelines.

2. Conduct Regular Penetration Testing

Testing is essential for identifying vulnerabilities in lift-and-shift migrations or cloud-native systems. Cloud penetration testing can help uncover misconfigurations, insecure APIs, or identity-related risks.

3. Implement Robust IAM Practices

Use least privilege principles to minimize access risks. The principle of least privilege ensures that users, applications, and services have only the permissions they absolutely need to perform their tasks. In addition to this, regularly review and audit IAM policies for compliance and security gaps.

4. Educate Your Team

Educating your team is a critical step in maintaining a secure cloud environment. Investing in training ensures your staff understands the unique challenges and best practices for securing both types of setups. From recognizing inherited vulnerabilities in lift-and-shift migrations to leveraging advanced cloud-native security tools like automated monitoring and IAM, a well-trained team and a culture of cybersecurity can effectively address risks and strengthen your overall security posture.

Be Proactive With Your Cloud Security

Deciding between lift-and-shift and cloud-native setups before you migrate to the cloud can affect your cloud security. Lift-and-shift is faster and easier to implement, but it might bring old security flaws with it. Cloud-native systems make the most of the cloud but can be more complicated to manage. If you already fall into either of these categories it’s important to use best practices like strong access controls, regular security testing, and clear separation between systems can help protect your current cloud environment. Connect with the experts at Control Gap for a tailored cloud security solution and cloud penetration testing to uncover and address potential risks in your environment. Take proactive steps to ensure your cloud remains both secure and resilient.