A cloud security audit is a review of an organization’s cloud security environment. During an audit, the security auditor will gather information, perform tests, and confirm whether the security posture meets industry standards.
The main objective of a cloud security audit is to evaluate the health of your cloud environment, including any data and applications hosted on the cloud.
From the list of “6 Fundamental Steps of a Cloud Security Audit.”
Security audits come in two forms: internal and external. In internal audits, a business uses its resources and employees to conduct the investigation. In external audits, a third-party organization is hired to conduct the audit.
To become a cloud security auditor, you need a certification like the Certificate of Cloud Security Knowledge (CCSK) or Certified Cloud Security Professional (CCSP). Prior experience in IT auditing, cloud security management, and cloud risk assessment is highly beneficial.
Cloud environments are used to store over 60 percent of all corporate data as of 2022.
With so much data in the cloud, organizations rely on cloud security audits to ensure that cloud services can safely provide on-demand access.
In this article, we explain what a cloud security audit is, its main objectives, and its benefits. We’ve also listed the six crucial steps of a cloud audit and a checklist of example actions taken during an audit.
A cloud security audit is a review of an organization’s cloud security environment. During an audit, the security auditor will gather information, perform tests, and confirm whether the security posture meets industry standards.
Cloud service providers (CSPs) offer three main types of services:
Businesses use these solutions to store data and drive daily operations.
A cloud security audit evaluates a CSP’s security and data protection measures. It can help identify and address any risks. The audit assesses how secure, dependable, and reliable a cloud environment is.
Cloud audits are an essential data protection measure for companies that store and process data in the cloud.
An audit assesses the security controls used by CSPs within the company’s cloud environment. It evaluates the effectiveness of the CSP’s security policies and technical safeguards.
Auditors identify vulnerabilities, gaps, or noncompliance with regulations. Addressing these issues can prevent data breaches and exploitation via cybersecurity attacks.
Meeting mandatory compliance standards will also prevent potentially expensive fines and being blacklisted.
Once the technical investigation is complete, the auditor generates a report. This report states their findings and can have recommendations to optimize security.
An audit can also help save money by finding unused or redundant resources in the cloud system.
The main objective of a cloud security audit is to evaluate the health of your cloud environment, including any data and applications hosted on the cloud. Other important objectives include:
Security audits come in two forms: internal and external. In internal audits, a business uses its resources and employees to conduct the investigation. In external audits, a third-party organization is hired to conduct the audit.
The internal audit team reviews the organization’s cloud infrastructure and data. They aim to identify any vulnerabilities or compliance issues.
A third-party auditor will do the same during an external audit.
Both types of audits provide an objective assessment of the security posture. But internal audits are rare since there is a higher chance of prejudice during analysis.
Cloud security assessments are provided by:
Here are eight ways in which security audits of cloud services are performed:
The exact audit process varies depending on the specific goals and scope.
Typically, an independent third party performs the audit. It inspects a cloud vendor’s security posture. It assesses how the CSP implements security best practices and whether it adheres to industry standards. It also evaluates performance against specific benchmarks set before the audit.
Here is a general overview of the audit process:
The audit process could take 12 weeks to complete. However, it could take longer for businesses to complete the recommended remediation tasks. The schedule may be extended if a gap analysis is required.
Businesses can speed up the audit process using automated security tools. This software quickly provides a unified view of all security risks across multiple cloud vendors.
Some CSPs, like Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure, also offer auditing tools. These tools are exclusive to each specific platform.
The price of a cloud audit varies based on its scope, the size of the organization, and the number of cloud platforms. For example, auditing one vendor could take four or five weeks. But a complex web with multiple vendors could take more than 12 weeks.
Six crucial steps must be performed in a cloud audit:
Evaluate the security posture of the cloud system. This includes security controls, policies, procedures, documentation, and incident response plans.
The auditor can interview IT staff, cloud vendor staff, and other stakeholders to collect evidence about information systems. Screenshots and paperwork are also used as proof.
After this process, the auditor analyzes the evidence. They check if existing procedures meet industry guidelines, like the ones provided by Cloud Security Alliance (CSA).
An attack surface includes all possible points, or attack vectors, through which unauthorized users can access and exploit a system. Since cloud solutions are so complex, this can be challenging.
Organizations must use cloud monitoring and observability technologies to determine the attack surface. They must also prioritize high-risk assets and focus their remediation efforts on them.
Auditors must identify all the applications and assets running within cloud instances and containers. They must check if the organization approves these or if they represent shadow IT.
To protect data, all workloads within the cloud system must be standardized and have up-to-date security measures.
Access management breaches are a widespread security risk. Unauthorized personnel can get credentials to access sensitive cloud data using various methods.
To minimize security issues related to unauthorized access, organizations must:
Organizations must install strong standards for external data access and sharing. These standards dictate how data is viewed and accessed in shared drives, calendars, and folders.
Start with restrictive standards and then loosen up restrictions when necessary. External access should not be provided to files and folders containing sensitive data. This includes personally identifiable information (PII) and protected health information (PHI).
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) systems can collect cloud logs in a standardized format. This allows editors to access logs and automatically generates reports necessary for different compliance standards. This helps organizations maintain compliance with industry security standards.
Regular security patches are crucial. However, many organizations and IT teams struggle with patch management.
To create an efficient patch management process, organizations must:
As a general rule of thumb, audits are conducted annually or biannually. But an audit should also be performed when:
Ultimately, the frequency of audits depends on the organization’s specific needs.
Here are some of the major challenges that organizations may face:
Cloud infrastructures can be complex with many services and applications across different providers. Each cloud vendor has their own security policies and practices. They also provide limited access to operational and forensic data required for auditing.
This lack of transparency prevents auditors from accessing pertinent data. To gather all relevant data, IT operations staff must coordinate with CSPs.
Auditors must also carefully choose test cases to avoid violating the CSP’s security policies.
Data in the cloud is encrypted using two methods — internal or provider encryption. Internal or on-premise encryption is when organizations encrypt data before it is transferred to the cloud. Provider encryption is when the CSP handles encryption.
With on-premise encryption, the primary threat comes from malicious internal actors. In the latter method, any security breach of the cloud provider’s network can harm your data.
From an auditing standpoint, it is best to encrypt data and manage encryption keys internally. If the CSP handles the encryption keys, auditing becomes nearly impossible.
Many cloud providers use the same physical systems for multiple user organizations. This increases the security risk. It also makes it challenging for auditors to inspect physical locations.
Organizations should use cloud vendors that use mechanisms to prevent unauthorized data access. For example, a cloud vendor must prevent users from claiming administrative rights to the entire system.
Cloud environments have ever-increasing entities for auditors to inspect. This includes managed databases, physical hosts, virtual machines (VMs), and containers. Auditing all these entities can be difficult, especially when there are constant changes to the entities.
Standardized procedures and workloads help auditors identify all critical entities within cloud systems.
Here is a cloud security audit checklist with example actions taken for each general control area:
The above list is not all-inclusive. Each cloud environment and process involved in auditing it is different.
Industry groups have created security standards to help companies maintain their security posture. Here are the five most recognized standards for cloud compliance and auditing:
The STAR program is built on three fundamental techniques:
CSA also has a registry of CSPs who have completed a self-assessment of their security controls. The program includes guidelines that can be used for cloud audits.
Cloud security audits are crucial for ensuring your cloud systems are secure and compliant. This is essential for data protection and preventing cybersecurity attacks.
Auditors must use modern monitoring and CSPM tools like Prevasio to easily identify vulnerabilities in multi-vendor cloud environments. This software leads to faster audits and provides a unified view of all threats, making it easier to take relevant action.
To become a cloud security auditor, you need certification like the Certificate of Cloud Security Knowledge (CCSK) or Certified Cloud Security Professional (CCSP). Prior experience in IT auditing, cloud security management, and cloud risk assessment is highly beneficial.
Other certifications like the Certificate of Cloud Auditing Knowledge (CCAK) by ISACA and CSA could also help. In addition, knowledge of security guidelines and compliance frameworks, including PCI DSS, ISO 27001, SOC 2, and NIST, is also required.
