Identity and access management can help when dealing with the challenges posed by a hybrid cloud environment. Workloads and services need to communicate across diverse locations, authenticating via credentials. When not protected adequately, credentials can leak or be stolen, leading to data breaches.
IAM best practices require careful management of credentials and certificates, rotating them regularly. Consider a unified, hybrid-aware IAM solution such as ForgeRock that can eliminate the problems associated with multiple identity stores and duplicate identities. This type of approach allows administrators to not only monitor and manage credentials but also identify and monitor high-risk access across public and private clouds.
Continuous monitoring can uncover vulnerabilities and abnormal behavior, but it is challenging in a hybrid environment that includes physical servers, virtual machines and containers. Continuous monitoring best practices entail scanning container images for vulnerabilities and deploying only those that are secure. Perform continuous auditing to check for compliance and changes that undermine security. Look to technologies such as the Broadcom AIOps monitoring tool for a bird’s-eye view of the entire hybrid environment. Such a tool can provide meaningful insights, spot anomalous behavior and even explore root causes in the event of a security incident.
LEARN MORE: How Backup as a Service boosts data protection.
Why You Need Administrative Controls for Proper Recovery
Disaster preparedness is key to maintaining a functioning, secure and accessible hybrid cloud environment. This involves assessing risks and implementing a disaster recovery plan.
Administrative controls best practices require understanding the value of a thorough disaster preparedness plan and familiarity with the recommendations on disaster recovery planning for state and local governments. Test and practice the plan so each member of the team is ready to hit the ground running when needed. The plan should include the multiple backups of databases, files and code that are necessary for security, but should also note that these increase the attack surface dramatically.
The hybrid cloud brings countless benefits to state and local governments, yet security issues can become extraordinarily complex. To protect the wealth of sensitive, confidential government information, agencies should expand security measures beyond the basics to address the unique challenges of managing such crucial information across multiple cloud environments.
