Securing Your Cloud Workloads: First Steps
Most cloud breaches come from misconfiguration, not sophisticated hacking. Start with these basics.
Moving to the cloud does not move responsibility for security to your provider. They secure the platform; you remain responsible for how you configure and use it.
Lock down identities
Protect the root or owner account with MFA and stop using it for daily work. Give each person and application only the permissions it needs, and review them regularly.
Close accidental exposure
Publicly readable storage and wide-open management ports are the classic causes of cloud data leaks. Audit them first, then enable alerts for any new public exposure.
Switch on logging
- Record administrative activity in every account.
- Send logs to a separate, protected location.
- Alert on unusual logins and permission changes.
Without logs you cannot answer the most important question after an incident: what did the attacker actually do?
