cyber trends
A MCAFEE STUDY UNDERLINES
THE UBIQUITOUS NATURE OF
CLOUD SERVICES BUT MANAGING
THESE REQUIRES SPECIALISED
KNOWLEDGE. RAJ SAMANI, CHIEF
SCIENTIST AT MCAFEE, TELLS US HOW TO
ADDRESS THE SECURITY CHALLENGES THIS
PRESENTS. HE ARGUES THAT BETTER
VISIBILITY ENABLES ORGANISATIONS
TO RESPOND MORE QUICKLY TO
CLOUD SECURITY THREATS.
C
loud services are
nearly ubiquitous,
with 97% of
worldwide IT
professionals
surveyed using
some type of
cloud function in their organisation, up
from 93% just one year ago, according
to data from a recent McAfee study.
Indeed, this cloud-first strategy has
driven organisations to take on many
different providers in their cloud
ecosystem. As organisations tackle new
data use initiatives, intelligence building,
new capabilities to store and execute on
applications, we have seen an explosion
in the number of sanctioned cloud
providers that businesses are reporting,
each a source of potential risk and
management need for the organisation.
The provider count requires readiness in
governance strategy that joins security
18
Seeing
through
the cloud
to ensure
security
capabilities and procurement together to
protect the data entrusted to each new
cloud deployment.
As a consequence, security operations
teams will need to have enhanced
visibility, that is unified, to compose
a picture across so many different
environments containing enterprise
data and then map this visibility against
resources to ensure the organisation has
the right skills in place to address the
security challenges.
Visibility over control
Think of this analogy – poor visibility
is one of the greatest challenges to a
navigator, preventing them from ever
leaving their familiar and well-charted
environment unless they can learn to
rely on their instruments and expertise.
After all, you cannot steer around what
you cannot see. The leading adopters of
cloud services understand this axiom and
are integrating cloud visibility into their IT
operations to accelerate business.
Issue 06
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