The Race to the Cloud: Balancing Speed with Security in the Cloud-Native Era

The digital landscape has evolved rapidly, with cloud-native technologies becoming a key driver of an organisation’s innovation and agility. However, the race to embrace these advancements has led to a "full speed ahead" mentality, where organisations often prioritise rapid deployment over robust security measures. This approach has created many security vulnerabilities, exposing organisations to significant cyber threats.

In this blog, we will explore the impact of this mentality on the cloud-native space and provide recommendations on how businesses can balance the need for speed with the imperative to maintain strong security practices.

The allure of cloud-native technologies

Cloud-native technologies have revolutionised how organisations operate, offering increased scalability, flexibility, and cost savings compared to traditional on-premises infrastructure. As a result, organisations are increasingly adopting cloud-native services to stay competitive and respond swiftly to market demands.

This shift has led to a heightened focus on speed, with companies eager to capitalise on the benefits of the cloud-native environment. Unfortunately, this full-speed-ahead mentality has resulted in neglecting security, leaving many organisations vulnerable to cyberattacks and data breaches.

Understanding the risks

As organisations race to embrace cloud-native technologies, they often overlook that these new environments come with unique security challenges. For example, the dynamic nature of cloud-native applications, which rely on microservices and containers, can create blind spots in security monitoring and visibility. Additionally, using multiple cloud service providers and platforms can increase the complexity of managing security across the entire ecosystem.

By prioritising speed over security, organisations expose themselves to a multitude of risks, including:

Data breaches: With sensitive information stored in cloud environments, companies are at risk of data breaches due to inadequate security measures. Such breaches can lead to reputational damage, financial losses, and regulatory penalties.

Misconfiguration: Incorrectly configured cloud-native services can leave organisations vulnerable to attacks, as cybercriminals exploit weaknesses in the system to gain unauthorised access.

Insider threats: Employees or contractors with access to cloud environments may intentionally or inadvertently expose sensitive data, resulting in significant security breaches.

Compliance issues: Failure to implement robust security measures in cloud-native environments can lead to non-compliance with data protection regulations, such as the GDPR, resulting in hefty fines and legal repercussions.

Addressing the security conundrum

Organisations must consciously incorporate security into their development and operational processes to protect their cloud-native environments and mitigate the risks associated with the full-speed-ahead mentality. Here are some recommendations to help businesses strike the right balance between speed and security:

Prioritise security training: Organisations must invest in security training for employees, ensuring they understand the risks associated with cloud-native technologies and are equipped to identify and mitigate potential threats. This includes training in secure coding practices, threat modelling, and security tools and technologies.

Implement strong security policies: Clear and robust security policies should be established, outlining the responsibilities of employees and contractors when working with cloud-native environments. This includes guidelines on access control, data protection, and incident response.

Incorporate security into the development lifecycle: Security should be an integral part of the development process rather than an afterthought. This can be achieved by adopting a DevSecOps approach, which integrates security practices into the DevOps pipeline. By doing so, organisations can identify and address security vulnerabilities early in the development process, reducing the risk of breaches and other security incidents.

Use automation and continuous monitoring: Automation tools can help to streamline security processes, reducing the risk of human error and ensuring that security measures are consistently applied.

Embrace a zero-trust security model: A zero-trust approach assumes that any user, device, or application could be compromised and thus requires continuous verification of their trustworthiness. By implementing a zero-trust model, organisations can protect their cloud-native environments from insider threats and other security risks.

Conduct regular security assessments: Regular security assessments, including vulnerability scans and penetration testing, should be conducted to identify potential weaknesses in the cloud-native infrastructure. These assessments can help organisations to stay one step ahead of cybercriminals and ensure that security measures are continually improved.

Collaborate with cloud service providers: Organisations should work closely with their cloud service providers to ensure that security best practices are followed, and any potential risks are addressed. This includes understanding the shared responsibility model, where the organisation and the cloud service provider are responsible for different security aspects and ensuring each party fulfils its obligations.

Plan for incident response and disaster recovery: Businesses must have a well-defined incident response plan to address security breaches and other incidents. This includes establishing clear lines of communication, assigning responsibilities for incident management, and outlining the steps needed to contain and remediate the incident. Additionally, organisations should develop a disaster recovery plan to ensure that critical systems can be quickly restored during a catastrophic failure or breach.

Conclusion

The full-speed-ahead mentality in the cloud-native space has undoubtedly accelerated the adoption of new technologies, driving innovation and agility for businesses. However, this approach has also exposed organisations to many security vulnerabilities, highlighting the need for a more balanced and security-conscious approach.

By investing in security training, implementing strong security policies, and incorporating security into the development lifecycle, organisations can harness the full potential of cloud-native technologies without compromising their security posture. Ultimately, striking the right balance between speed and security will be critical for businesses to thrive in the cloud-native era.

If you find this article interesting or would like to talk to us regarding our security posture for Centerprise Cloud, please contact us.

Privacy Overview

Privacy Policy

We respect privacy and your rights to control your personal data. We will be clear about the data we collect and why. Your
data is safeguarded by us and we do not and will not sell or rent your data to third parties. We may combine your information
with information we collect from other companies (such as demographic data) to improve and personalize the services
provided to you.

We collect:

Name, email address, IP address and information provided by cookies or similar technology.

Why:

We use this information to share news about events and products offered by CID. Additionally, the IP address helps us to
understand geographic information about our website visitors better so that we can improve our website for everyone.

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information to complete your transaction, follow up with you about your purchase, help with any delivery issues, handle
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Use of Email / Anti-Publishing Policy

We will use email to communicate with you after you provide us your email address to gain access to our services. When you
interact with us through your Online Services account, you provide your email address as a way for us to communicate with
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We will never request that you provide sensitive personal information, such as bank account numbers, PINs, user names, or
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To verify the destination of an active link, you should hover your mouse over it and review the address information displayed in
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Phishing

Web users should be wary of suspicious email. Signs that an email may be a phishing attempt include:

The email contains obvious spelling errors. Phishers do this intentionally in order to avoid spam filters many Internet
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Links to the Web site contain all or part of a real entity's name, or Web address, but the link itself is not identical to that of the
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Phishing detection may be enhanced by use of a Web browser that has a phishing filter. The latest versions of most browsers including Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Opera include phishing filters that can help in detecting phishing attempts.

What we collect:

This may include contact information such as your name, email address, phone number, social media identifiers (if you
contact us using a social media channel), and the content of your chats and other communications with CID services team
(including voice recording). In certain situations we may need to collect system configuration & diagnostic information to
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Why:

We collect this information to enable us to deliver the services defined in your service agreemen.

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We protect data obtained from third parties according to the practices described in this notice and we also apply any
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How We Use Personal Information

CID uses the data we collect to provide you with the products and services we offer, which includes using data to improve
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CID uses the data for the following purposes:

Providing our Product Experience
Customer Support
Product Improvement
Security, Safety, and Dispute Resolution
Business Operations
Communication, Marketing and Advertising

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Customer Support

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Product Improvement

We continually use data to improve our products and services, including adding new features or capabilities, such as
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Security, Safety, and Dispute Resolution

We use data to protect the security and safety of our products and our customers, to detect and prevent fraud, to
resolve disputes and enforce our agreements.

Business Operations

We use data to protect the security and safety of our products and our customers, to detect and prevent fraud, to
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Communication, Marketing and Advertising

We use the data we collect to deliver and personalise our communications with you. For example, we may contact you
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CID does not and will not sell personal information about our customers.

We only disclose your data as authorised in this Statement. We may share information with the following types of third parties.

Who We May Disclose your Personal Information to and Why

Third party vendors. CID uses a variety of third-party vendors to carry out services like website management and hosting,
product purchases and shipping, credit card processing and email communications. We only share your personal data as
necessary. To complete a transaction, provide a product or service you have requested or authorised and only with vendors
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shared with these agents or contractors but only for the purpose of performing services on behalf of CID and in accordance
with this Notice. The up-to-date list of these parties may be requested from CID at any time.

Parties with whom it might be necessary, when we reasonably believe it to be required by law or in connection with legal
proceedings; to prevent harm to CID or its customers; for the prevention and detection of crime or the apprehension or
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Parties with whom it might be necessary to complete a financial or corporate transaction such as a merger or sale of assets.

We may also share non-personal information such as aggregated data with our partners or publicly.

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You can opt out of receiving certain direct communications from CID. If you wish to stop receiving emails from us, you can do
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information from the device (device type, operating system, screen resolution, language, country you are located in, and web
browser type) you used during your visit. We only capture and store a truncated version of your IP address. It is captured and
stored in an anonymized format by suppressing the last octet so your full IP address never reaches our servers and we never
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We process this usage data to facilitate your access to our services (e.g. to adjust our services to the device you are using)
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How to control cookie settings

Most web browsers allow you to control cookies through their settings preferences, however if you limit the ability of websites
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In addition to cookies, we sometimes use small graphic images known as 'pixels' (also known as web beacons, clear GIFs, or
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We use a variety of security technologies and procedures to help protect your personal data from unauthorised access, use or
disclosure. For example, we store the personal data you provide on computer systems that have limited access and are in
controlled facilities. When we transmit data over the Internet, we protect it using encryption.

While no service is completely secure, CID takes precautionary measures to help prevent information about you from loss,
theft, misuse and unauthorised access, disclosure, alteration and destruction. For example, we ensure that our third-party data
centre vendors provide adequate security measures.

Additionally, your data is protected with encryption, such as Transport Layer Security (TLS), during transition over the Internet.
Your personal information is stored on servers that are kept in a controlled environment with limited access. While we take
reasonable precautions to guard personal information we collect from you, no security system is impenetrable.

Other Important Privacy Information

Our Policy Towards Children

CID does not seek to gather information on or from children. We do not knowingly solicit personal information from children or
send them requests for personal information.

Our Retention of Personal Data

CID retains personal data only for as long as necessary and that is relevant to provide services, support your product and fulfil
the transactions you have requested, or for other essential purposes such as complying with our legal obligations, and
resolving disputes and enforcing our agreements. Because these needs can vary for different data types in the context of
different products or services, actual retention periods can vary significantly.

Changes to Our Privacy Notice

CID may modify or update this Statement when necessary to reflect customer feedback and changes in our products and
service; so, please review it regularly. When we update this Statement, we will revise the 'Last Update' date at the top of this
document. If there are material changes to the Statement or in how CID uses your personal data, we will notify you by posting
a notice of such changes before they take effect. We encourage you to regularly review this Statement to learn more how CID
is using and protecting your information. Your continued use of the service or products after any modification to this
Statement will constitute your acceptance of such modification and updates.

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Cookie Policy

What are Cookies?

We use the term cookie to describe cookies and similar technologies such as tags and pixels. Cookies are small data files that websites place on your computer, laptop or mobile device.

Our use of Cookies

We use Cookies for the following purposes:

To improve the performance of our websites by understanding which parts work well, and which don't.
To deliver relevant online advertising to you both on our websites and elsewhere. This is sometimes done by combining data that we already have about you with the data collected through Cookies. These Cookies are placed by us and selected third parties and enable adverts to be presented to you on our and third party websites.
To measure how effective our online advertising and marketing communications are.
To enable us to collect information about how you and other people use our websites.
To improve your experience on our websites, for example we use Cookies to remember the products you've put in your basket and to personalise your experience.

What Cookies do we use?

We use the following Cookies:

Strictly necessary Cookies. These are Cookies that are required for the operation of our website. They are necessary for the safety, security and integrity of the site. For example they help support the structure of the pages that are displayed to you, help to improve navigation and allow you to return to pages you have previously visited. This type of Cookie only lasts for the duration of the time you are visiting the website. When you leave the website they are deleted automatically.
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Blocking or restricting Cookies

You can stop Cookies being used on your device by activating the setting on your browser that allows you to block the deployment of all or some Cookies. Please visit www.allaboutcookies.org to find out how. Please note, if you use your browser settings to block Cookies you may not be able to access all or parts of our site.

If you have a question about this policy please contact us by one of the following means:

By email: DPO@centerprise.co.uk

Policy change

This cookie policy was most recently updated in DEC2020. If we make changes to it, then we will take appropriate steps to bring those changes to your attention.