Intelligent CISO Issue 06 | Page 18

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 | www.intelligentciso.com