9 tips for assessing your modern cloud security toolsets

Cloud specific security tooling is essential for protecting your cloud application and data. Today, organizations in the cloud use multiple open source tools to secure their cloud ecosystem across several domains. This includes workload protection, infrastructure protection, application protection, static code analysis and security incident management. How are you evaluating your cloud security toolsets? Here are 9 tips used in the industry to evaluate whether your system is effective…or not!

1. Transparency

With security toolings protecting data from unauthorized access (and most likely several data losses), it inherently has access to sensitive customer information. Tools can only be effective if they are transparent to users. If users are not aware of the tool’s presence, they may inadvertently bypass its security features. Additionally, transparency allows users to see how the tool works and understand its capabilities. To better understand “transparency” of your tool, you should ask yourself two questions:

How does the cloud security vendor manage “operator access” to the data?

Ideally, all the data should be encrypted, however many security tools process sensitive data in clear text. For such systems, it’s prudent for vendor systems and operators to have a process for granting access to authorized users. Your system should ensure that only authorized personnel have access to sensitive data (monitoring operator activity and revoking access if needed).

How is multi-tenancy managed, especially if you use a SAAS security platform?

More and more security businesses are turning to SAAS. With many customer databases kept by SAAS firms, a robust multi-tenant architecture at scale is required. It’s critical to keep 1.)network segmentation, 2.)identity and access segmentation, and 3.)data segregation in place across the tenants so that one tenant’s breach or outage does not have a downstream impact on the other tenants.

How are secrets and data encryption keys managed?

It’s critical to maintain a lifecycle of secrets and encryption keys. Understanding your system’s key creations, rotation policies, access methods, and data deletion procedures ensures that your data protection plan can face various crisis situations.

2. Customization

Security solutions should be adaptable enough to meet your company’s specific control needs and culture. To ensure that it is most beneficial for your users, you may modify the security programs and projects to match your organization’s particular infrastructure. Tailoring integrations with existing systems for logging, monitoring, asset managing and incident responding is critical to fostering successful collaborations.

3. API Driven

The advantages of API-powered security solutions are numerous. First, they may be readily integrated with existing SDLC processes via well-defined API connections. You may use your present infrastructure to boost its capacity and functionality by utilizing this connection. Second, tools that are powered by APIs can automate the tasks that would otherwise be performed by security analysts.

4. Managed service

Modern businesses choose to enable security services in a managed approach. This includes using an intuitive, agentless method to relieve the strain on their ops teams. Managed services are frequently less expensive than buying and maintaining your own security tools. These service providers keep the tools up to date with the most recent security enhancements, detections, findings, and fixes for your specific operations.

5. Understand end-to-end attack paths

The accuracy of risk ratings from security solutions are limited unless they are aware of how cyber attacks operate (and how they can be prevented). These “risk ratings” should focus on a specific sector such as network security, static code analysis, vulnerability monitoring or IAM security. By understanding the end-to-end attack path, the tool can identify potential security vulnerabilities and take steps to mitigate them. Additionally, this understanding can help the tool provide better protection against future attacks and check the effectiveness of your zero trust controls.

6. Contextual to your core business

Your security tool for your business vertical should support your required security standards for your industry (such as NIST, HIPPA, PCI, and ISO). Your tools should create the functionality, business processes and reporting dashboard curated to achieve these security objectives. This contextualization enables the software to more effectively defend against aberrant behaviors that are more likely in your industry sector.

7. Shift-left the security

Shift-left toolsets significantly cut down the time and effort necessary to identify and address risks in production run times. Shift-left security tools seamlessly integrate with the developer experience around CI/CD pipelines. They should be seamless with their IDEs of developer environments to provide comprehensive security feedback as the code is being written.

8. Visibility and control over hybrid-cloud deployments

The hybrid cloud is here to stay, particularly for the crown jewels of legacy data and systems that are still on-premises. The cloud/on-premise integration will endure for a long time into the future.

A cloud-based/on-premise security solution’s centralized “single pane of glass” management console should let you see all of your assets in one spot—regardless of where they’re located.

9. Cost-effective

One of the advantages of utilizing “As A Service” security solutions is that they are cost-effective. By NOT relying on a traditional volume licensing model, SAAS delivers adequate security defense without breaking the bank The pay-as-you-go feature of these toolsets allows for a more predictable and manageable security budget.

Infrastructure As Code Best Practices

 Development and deployment cycles are running at faster rates than ever before. Through continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD), businesses are able to create and implement applications at a rapid rate. While this is driving innovation, it is also creating new challenges. The faster ideas are traveling through the CI/CD pipeline, the less time there is to address emerging security concerns. This is why Infrastructure as Code Security (IaC) is becoming an increasingly important part of DevOps. Learn more about IaC and how you can leverage it to improve security without having to slow the pace of growth.

Security Best Practices for IaC

You can take full advantage of IaC and improve security by implementing these best practices:

1- Continuous compliance. The best way to ensure compliance is to create clear standards for each stop along the pipeline. Continually reassessing compliance throughout the process according to predetermined rules is an excellent first step toward improved security. This will also allow you to test code against identified threats in a sandbox environment before fully implementing changes.

2- Least privilege principle. To make the process easier, usually DevOps engineers have a master account connecting to the cloud provider and provisioning all the resources with that master account. While this is a fast and easy approach, it is not the most secure approach. The recommendation is to have a set of different accounts with various Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) in place. These allow you to run the IaC code with a minimum privilege access mindset.

3- Monitor and update cloud security and compliance tests. It is also important to address security at the cloud environment level. This should include constant risk assessment and threat modeling. As new users are added and changes are made, you should continue to adjust access control and update firewalls.

4- Keeping secrets in a vault. While connecting to a cloud provider, you need secrets for the initial authentication and accessing resources. These secrets should be kept in a vault for maximum security and all the vault communication should be encrypted as well. Also, you should think about the rotation of secrets to prevent exposing them in the long run.

5- Require encryption. With modern encryption tools, there is no reason not to encrypt all data that is transmitted in the cloud. This is an essential tool that will protect sensitive data and add a layer of protection.

6- Automate alerts. There tool that will update your model repository as the IT and security communities learn about new threats. In addition, AI can be used to identify any abnormalities and automatically trigger alerts. These are important tools that incorporate security into the everyday flow of CI/CD.

7- Staging environments. It is highly recommended to have separate environments for development, QA and Production. Keep in mind, IaC always starts from the development environment and then goes to QA and production. Never deploy something to higher environments while you were not testing that in lower environments.

8- Remove the manual access to the cloud portal. In higher environments (QA, Prod) if developers and DevOps engineers have access to manually change the configurations, you could see configuration drifts from the IaC templates down the line. Always remove individual contributor access to higher environments and just give your developers the Read permission to validate resources manually. If they need to change something, it should go through the IaC process.

IaC provides businesses with the potential to accelerate DevOps and continuously update and improve applications without skipping a beat. This sort of fast-paced environment inevitably creates new security concerns, but there are existing tools and techniques that will allow you to take advantage of IaC while also addressing and reducing security risks. With the right security plan in place, you can confidently use IaC and remain flexible, scalable, and safe.

For additional help designing and implementing an IaC security plan, contact the experts at prancer.

Cloud Security Testing

In many cases, a cyber attack is only successful if a user takes a certain action, including clicking on a malicious link or entering information into a cloned website. However, with drive-by cyber attacks, malware is spread by targeting websites with security vulnerabilities and without requiring any action on the part of the user. This makes drive-by attacks an especially problematic and insidious type of hack and threat to cloud security. Keep reading to learn more about how this type of cyber attack works and what you can do to prevent your website from being targeted.

Hackers can only initiate a drive-by attack if the website is insecure. They will look for gaps in cloud security that will allow them to insert malicious scripts into the website code. This script can be used to automatically download malware onto the computer of a visitor to the site or redirect visitors to an alternative site that has been created by the hackers. Either way, both the website and the users are victims.

Drive-by downloads are also dangerous because they aren’t limited to website pages. They can also be triggered when a user views an email or looks at a pop-up window. Any app, web browser or operating system can be hijacked and used by the hacker.

How to Prevent Drive-By Attacks

For businesses and website owners, the best way to prevent drive-by cyber attacks is to make sure that your security, browser, and operating systems are up to date. It can be all too easy to forget about updates or fail to double-check that updates were successful, which can create just the sort of security vulnerabilities that make drive-by attacks possible. Be sure to not only schedule updates but make sure to review them to ensure compliance.

In addition, businesses should make sure to remove outdated aspects of the website. As you update or add new software, older tools should be removed. If they are left on the site and not updated with emerging security patches, you have created an easy way to exploit the site. Even if these components are not in use, they can still be used by hackers to insert malware.

It should go without saying that secure passwords are also at the heart of preventing cyber attacks, but some businesses still fail to enforce strong password use. A password generator and management tool can go a long way in supporting cloud security and preventing hackers from guessing weak passwords and easily gaining access to website code.

Finally, be aware of the types of advertisements that your users are being served. While publishing ads on your site can be a great way to generate passive income, this is also a common path for malware. Take the time to monitor the ads that are being shown on your site and make sure that your users aren’t being targeted with ad-based drive-by attacks.

Users should also make sure that browsers and operating systems are running the latest versions. In addition, they should minimize the number of apps and programs on your devices. The more programs you have running, the more likely you are to be the target of a drive-by attack. Pop-up blockers can also be an effective tool to reduce the risk of drive-by cyber attacks.

While drive-by cyber attacks are difficult to identify and prevent, there are steps that both businesses and users can take to reduce the risk of becoming a victim of this type of attack. For more information about different types of cyberattacks, how to prevent them, and ways to ensure compliance, contact the experts at prance . We help businesses across all industries improve cloud security and compliance in ways that also support the DevOps pipeline.

Security Compliance

Prancer Enterprise is announcing that its entire cloud compliance policies repository is now open source. The repository is available on GitHub at

https://github.com/prancer-io/prancer-compliance-test

This move reflects Prancer’s commitment to open source technology and harness the power of community collaboration to move great ideas through the pipeline faster.

These compliance policies that focused on IaC Security and live cloud resources are based on CIS, NIST 800, PCI, HIPPA, HITRUST, CSA CCM and ISO 27001 compliance standards. These policies are all in REGO Open Policy Agent (OPA) language.

Prancer Enterprise platform helps companies achieve end-to-end security in the cloud by shifting security to the left and apply it early in the development process. Cloud DevOps engineers could have an early feedback on the security of the Infrastructure as Code (IaC) templates with every commit they are making to the code.

Prancer Enterprise Cloud Compliance repository has more than 1000 policies both on the Infrastructure as Code (IaC) Security and post-deployment resources. This unique Cloud compliance policy repository is the most significant contribution to the open-source community based on the de facto Rego policy language.

IaC Security policies cover Azure, AWS and Google Clouds. Kubernetes Objects are also supported in the IaC Security. Post-deployment security scans based on these cloud providers help businesses to increase cloud security posture and maintaining security in the cloud.

As more companies begin to rely on cloud technologies, they are also looking for ways to apply compliance to their cloud environment easily and make it a secure place for their workloads. Prancer Platform helps companies to leverage security throughout the lifecycle of their cloud deployment. Prancer Platform integrates into DevOps pipelines and provides IaC Security scan.

About Prancer

Prancer Enterprise (https://www.prancer.io/) provides a pre-deployment and post-deployment multi-cloud security platform for Infrastructure as Code (IaC) and live cloud environments. It shifts the security to the left and provides end-to-end security scanning based on the Policy as Code concept. DevOps engineers can use it for static code analysis on IaC to find security drifts and maintain their cloud security posture with continuous compliance features.

Cloud Security Posture Management CSPM

What is Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)?

Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) is a market portion for IT security apparatuses intended to distinguish misconfiguration issues and consistency changes in the cloud. CSPM devices work by inspecting and contrasting cloud security against a characterized set of best practices and realized security hazards.

Cloud Security Posture Management: why you need it now

Since cloud security grows across plenty of regions, CSPM permits associations to merge all possible misconfigurations to a straightforward stage to transfer data. Utilizing CSPM considers the ability to see compliances with systems, for example, CIS v1.1, HIPAA, or SOC 2; this way reinforces trust in your association's item and cloud information security.

Cloud Security Posture Management azure administration upholds the two Windows and Linux working frameworks. It is utilized to assemble, test, convey and oversee applications living in server farms managed by Microsoft. It offers SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS benefits and uses an expansive determination of programming dialects, structures, devices, information bases, and gadgets. Purplish blue presents a comprehensive exhibit of cloud security alternatives that can be arranged to an association's enjoyable necessities, execution, and administration model. These incorporate checking, encryption for information very still and on the way, access the executives, and information recovery.

CloudSecurity Posture Management AWS empowers you to make new AWS accounts in your AWS Organization with AWS-suggested best practices and guardrails set up. Our clients and accomplices frequently request approaches to robotize the execution of some customizations explicit to their association on the making of another AWS account. This is particularly valid for clients.

AWS CSPM considers checking and should be possible through a strategy for mechanization; questions are run intermittently (recurrence is reliant upon the CSPM device) and highlights can take into account programmed making aware of safety administrators who can conciliate the issue when it emerges.

Cloud Security Posture Management market

The segment section is ordered into arrangement and administrations. The cloud model portion incorporates framework as assistance (IaaS) and programming as a help (SaaS). The verticals considered in the report are BFSI, medical care, retail and exchange, schooling, IT and Telecommunication, public area, and different verticals (incl. media and diversion, neighborliness, and assembling). The in general CSPM market is concentrated across five locales: North America, Europe, APAC, Latin America, and MEA.

CSPM arrangement gives perceivability into the public cloud framework of an association, including cloud assets, consistence, and cloud designs. CSPM arrangements were prior known as Cloud Infrastructure Security Posture Assessment (CISPA). The arrangements are created to assist the buyers with moderating the danger of strategy infringement,

Continuous Compliance

Continuous compliance is tied in with building up a culture and procedure inside your association that ceaselessly surveys your consistent position to guarantee you meet your industry and administrative requests while keeping up secure frameworks.

Why does every Organization need Continuous Compliance?

ControlCase gathers and screens important information takes care of from client IT foundation like SIEM, Vulnerability Scanners, Data disclosure, Identity, and access the board, and so forth ControlCase Continuous Compliance Solution utilizes creative and profoundly successful information examination innovation and furnishes you with significant experiences dependent on holes, dangers, and resources in scope. ControlCase gives a brought together dashboard to Continuous Compliance utilizing leader online comfort called SkyCAM, which offers a moment look to consistency and rebelliousness status. This is critical for associations that need to rapidly accomplish consistency across their IT, for example, PCI DSS, ISO 27001, GDPR, HIPAA, SOC2 consistency/guidelines. Continuous compliance helps CISOs, CSOs, Chief Compliance Officers, and different partners guarantee administrative consistency inside their associations.

Continuous Compliance & Assurance ought to ease these problem areas by expanding inner straightforwardness and control while at the same time diminishing everyday obligations and overhead.

Building Continuous Compliance into DevOps

Constant affirmation gives genuine feelings of serenity that the condition of consistency is continuous as opposed to simply a lapsed preview. By executing continuous compliance and assurance, associations can have confidence that their data resources are secured consistently.

Continuous Compliance Monitoring has a compliance-driven DevOps culture that helps decrease operational expenses, improve efficiencies, and diminish hazards impressively. Consistence-related exercises should be remembered ahead of schedule for the product lifecycle by the DevOps groups a similar path as in the testing method. How everybody is looking at moving left for testing the equivalent applies to compliances. Robotization will help in this somewhat. You can't leave the security and consistency-related worries for later stages in the delivery cycle.

Which three practices support Continuous Compliance?

• Constant checking is the interaction and innovation used to distinguish consistency and hazard issues related to an association's economic and operational security.
• The economic and operational security comprises individuals, cycles, and frameworks cooperating to help productive and viable activities. Controls are set up to address hazards inside these segments.
• By consistently observing the activities and controls, powerless or ineffectively planned or executed rules can be revised or supplanted – subsequently improving the association's operational danger profile.

Financial backers, governments, the general population, and different partners keep on expanding their requests for more effective corporate administration and business straightforwardness.

 

How SQL Injection Attacks Work

 

Compared to other forms of cyber attacks, the SQL injection can be more complex and require some sophisticated coding skills. SQL is a declarative coding language that is specifically used to manage data. Essentially, an SQL attack technique works by inserting malicious code into applications. This changes the way databases respond to queries and allows hackers to gain access to user information, delete and edit code, create administrative rights and open a more permanent backdoor to the database. SQL injection attacks are a particularly damaging cyberattack that can affect a business both in the short and long term.

Why SQL Injection Attacks on are the Rise

According to a study by Akamai, SQL injection attacks represented 65% of all web based attacks between November 2017 and March 2019. This is a significant increase over previous years and the US is both receiving the most attacks and the largest source of attacks. The study also found that the gaming industry is being targeted. Hackers are able to gain login credentials from gaming accounts and then use this information to try to login to other accounts. This approach relies on the fact that most people use the same login information for multiple accounts.

The Infamous Heartland Attack

One of the biggest data breaches in history was the result of an SQL injection attack. In 2008, Heartland Payment Systems, which was the sixth largest payment processor at the time, discovered a major data breach that resulted in over 100 million cards being compromised. This sophisticated attack was launched by a team of hackers who identified SQL vulnerabilities and then made changes to the code so that they could remain undetected and collect sensitive card information. This data was then sold to other parties who could use it for their own criminal purposes.

Preventing SQL Injection Attacks

The best way to prevent any cyber attack is to understand your vulnerabilities. This means regularly running tests and updating and patching applications as needed. You can run manual tests or use automated testing tools for continuous monitoring. It is also important to use a firewall to help filter data and identify new vulnerabilities as they arise.

The nature of SQL injection attacks make them difficult to detect and damaging. For these reasons, they are becoming an increasingly popular form of cyber attacks and should be taken into account when creating any cloud security plan. If you want to learn more about SQL injection attacks and how you can work to protect your business, contact the team at prancer. We specialize in cloud security and compliance through validation frameworks. Contact us today.

What is phishing cyber attack?

Essentially, phishing involves sending a malicious email that looks like it is coming from a reliable and credible source. The goal is to get the recipient to click on a link or take other actions that will result in the hacker gaining access to data. This clever type of attack combines taps into our natural inclination to trust certain sources and uses technical bait to get us to download malware or send personal information.

Phishing tends to cast a rather wide net and hope that a few people will trust the email. However, there is a more targeted approach known as spear phishing. With this type of attack, the hacker actually conducts research on the target and creates a personal message. This makes it more likely that the recipient will trust the message. In some cases, the hacker will use the name of a familiar sender, including a co-worker or company. The email may also use a cloned website to make links appear credible and use the illegitimate website to collect login credentials or other data. Because of its targeted nature, spear phishing is difficult to identify and protect against.

It can be easy to fall victim to phishing cyberattacks, especially if you don’t know how they work or what to look out for as you check emails. A little education can go a long way in identifying potential problems and avoiding this type of attack. Keep in mind that even personalized emails can be a form of spear phishing, so take the time to verify the sender and any links as you work your way through your inbox. For more information about cloud security, phishing, and ways to prevent this type of attack, contact the experts at prancer.

Lessons from the Twilio Breach

The Twilio breach is another reminder that no matter how advanced and automated IaC and cloud technology becomes, it is still fundamentally a human system and that means that mistakes can be made. In addition, it shows that businesses have to be more careful even when it comes to open-source collaboration. Some assets should be publicly accessible so that users can view and create files, but there needs to be authentication and access gateways for other assets. Ultimately, the company did the best they could in the situation. You can’t prevent attacks, but you can create systems that will quickly identify problems so that you can immediately respond. Twilio also received praise from industry experts for being transparent about the incident and how they responded. This helps others to learn and hopefully avoid similar situations.

Ultimately, IaC is a valuable tool that represents a major evolution in technology. However, it is not a perfect system. Misconfiguration continues to be a top security concern. If you need help improving IaC security and ensuring continuous compliance, contact prancer. We specialize in cloud validation frameworks that will help you make the most of IaC and cloud technology.

Secure APIs

A secure API is an important part of cloud security, but what exactly is it and how does it work with the rest of available security features? In this post, we will explore the basics of an API, how it can create security vulnerabilities and important best practices that will help you avoid problems.

What is an API?

Essentially, an Application Programming Interface (API) is a piece of software that serves as an intermediary that allows different applications to communicate. It has become an essential tool for web developers who want to share data and information. With API security, certain routines and protocols are put into place in order to regulate communications and protect data. If the API isn’t secure, this can create opportunities for malicious actors to gain access.

Common API Implementation Methods

Representational State Transfer (REST) uses HTTP and supports TLS authentication to access data and carry out communications on remote computers. It is designed to simplify the way data is transferred over browsers and doesn’t require that any data is retained or repackaged.

Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) is one common approach for implementing APIs. This method relies on XML Signature, XML Encryption, and SAML tokens to manage messaging and security issues. It does require more overhead, but it also provides better security, which makes it a great choice for businesses that need more comprehensive security or have to consider compliance standards.

API Security Threats

It is common practice for APIs to document their structure and how they are implemented. If this information falls into the wrong hands, it can provide a roadmap for how to mount a cyber attack. Businesses with insecure endpoints, weak authentication, lack of encryption, and flaws in business logic can also inadvertently create insecurities that make attacks possible.

Different Types of API Security Attacks

Code Injection. With this type of API security attack, a hacker will actually inject malicious code into the software program. This code can be used to delete information or attack the end user’s browser.

Man in the Middle (MITM). This attack involves a hacker who is able to enter the system and intercept or alter the information as it is being relayed. Hackers can use this method to intercept a session token in the HTTP header and gain access to a user’s account, which can reveal personal data such as credit card and login information.

Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS). With a DDoS attack, the goal is to bombard the system with requests for information and connections. Essentially, this overwhelms the system by eating up all the available resources, eventually leading to a website crash.

Security Best Practices

When it comes to API and cloud security best practices, there are there major components to consider:

1. Authentication. You want to be able to clearly verify the identity of the end-user.

2. Authorization. This is used to dictate which resources a verified user can access. No one should be able to gain access to tools and operations that don’t align with their role and responsibilities.

3. Encryption. All data, whether it is in transit or being stored should be fully encrypted. If your system experiences a MITM attack, the hackers won’t be able to interpret the information. Encrypt all sensitive information in transit.

4. Logging and Monitoring. Inbound and outbound traffic monitoring for history.

5. Protect critical APIs with Firewalls ( Layer 3 firewall and Web Application Firewall).

6. Deny communications with known malicious IP addresses.

7. Regularly review and reconcile user access

8. Isolate systems storing or processing sensitive information.

9. Run automated vulnerability scanning tools. Automating your security scans can help create a proactive approach to security.

10. Securely store configuration values. You could use a Secret Store to store all the sensitive configurations of your API software.

11. Ensure regular automated backups

12. Create an incident response guide so that there is a clear plan of action when issues need to be addressed.

13. Create an incident scoring and prioritization procedure.

14. Conduct regular penetration testing.

Cloud security is an essential component that allows users to take full advantage of cloud technology without creating vulnerabilities. API security is a key part of any comprehensive security strategy. That is why it is important to understand how APIs work, how hackers seek to exploit them, and why types of best practices can keep data safe and secure. For additional information and help with cloud security and validation, contact the experts at prancer. We specialize in providing customers pre-deployment and post-deployment multi-cloud validation framework for your Infrastructure as Code (IaC) pipeline that supports continuous compliance in the cloud.

PCI & Cloud Compliance in the Modern Age

Today, many of us rely on the convenience of online shopping to quickly purchase items we couldn’t find in neighborhood stores or to simply avoid having to go to the store altogether. Online payments also make it possible to secure plane tickets, make hotel reservations, and even pay bills. However, the payment landscape that we know now developed over time. The real boom in online shopping can be traced back to the emergence of the internet. From then on, payment card data continued to be used more widely and transmitted on a global level. In response, individual card providers began their own programs to ensure certain levels of protection, but it wasn’t until 2004 that the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council (PCI SSC) created global standards. Today, the Council is tasked with the additional challenge of creating regulations in the age of cloud computing. At the same time, businesses must comply with and validate these requirements.

This post will take a closer look at current PCI regulations and different ways that businesses are meeting compliance standards.

PCI Data Security Requirements

The PCI has created a total of twelve different compliance requirements that are organized into six groups known as “control objectives”:

Build and Maintain a Secure Network and Systems

Protect Cardholder Data

Maintain a Vulnerability Management Program

Implement Strong Access Control Measures

Regularly Monitor and Test Networks

Maintain an Information Security Policy

While some of the details and sub-categories pertaining to control objectives have changed over time, these core values have been in place since the inception of the PCI SSC.

Validating PCI Compliance

Validation of compliance can be conducted on several different levels according to how many transactions they handle on a yearly basis. More transactions require increased levels of scrutiny and compliance validation.

Level 1 companies that process over 6 million transactions in the course of a year will need to be evaluated by a Qualified Security Assessor (QSA) who is an independent evaluator who has been certified by the PCI SSC. They are responsible for evaluating compliance according to certain criteria.

In addition, all Level 1 companies are required to fill out a Report on Compliance (ROC) when they undergo an audit. This document is used to outline in detail all the policies and strategies that are being used to prevent cardholders from becoming the victims of fraud.

Businesses that fall in the Level 2 category and process between 1 and 6 million transactions will be required to use an Internal Security Assessor (ISA). This individual is a member of the company who has earned a PCI SSC certification. This allows them to conduct self-assessments. They may be asked to work closely with QSAs to ensure compliance.

PCI SSC also requires that all companies fill out a self-assessment questionnaire (SAQ) every year. If the assessment reveals that the company is not fully compliant in certain areas, they must provide a plan for full implementation and show that they are able and willing to address the problem.

Benefits of PCI SSC Compliance and Validation

The goal of PCI SSC is to protect both consumers and merchants. When a consumer is subject to a scam or fraud, the consequences can be far-reaching. Their personal information can be compromised, their credit scores can be affected, and much more. Merchants who experience a breach can face financial liabilities and the loss of consumer trust, which can significantly hurt business. Compliance is a vital aspect of maintaining healthy global markets where both merchants and shoppers can operate confidently.

How to Improve Your PCI SSC Compliance

Prancer is one tool that allows companies with a cloud validation framework that can test for compliance along the entire development and implementation pipeline. This allows for both pre and post-deployment validation so that you can create a strong foundation and continue to test and make changes as needed. Not only does this improve security and compliance, it allows DevOps teams to avoid delays and continue to safely deploy new applications.

If you handle card payments and need help with your PCI SSC compliance strategies, contact prancer today. We can help you improve security, meet global regulations and earn the trust of consumers.

A Basic Guide to Cloud Security

In general, the term cloud security refers to ways that the applications, data, and infrastructures are protected in cloud computing. The exact nature of cloud security, which tools are used, what protections are prioritized and other basics will vary not only according to the needs of the end-user but also according to the type of cloud environment. These are all factors that we will take a closer look at in the following post so that you can gain a better understanding of cloud security and how it affects your business.

The Main Goals of Cloud Security

Ultimately, all cloud security is designed with the same goals in mind:

1. Keep data and systems safe
2. Provide ways to view and understand the current status of security
3. Provide the ability to trace the source of events and respond quickly
4. Alert relevant parties of breaches or other unusual activity

How these goals are achieved can be impacted by the type of cloud environment.

Different Types of Cloud Environments

Public clouds pools virtual resources to provide a technology that is available to multiple users. Typically, a public cloud is managed by a third-party and provides automated features and self-service functions so that users can easily gain access. One of the big advantages of public clouds is that they are highly scalable, which is perfect for users who may experience frequent and unpredictable changes in demand.

With private clouds, everything is designed with the end-user in mind and any necessary hardware is located and managed on-premise. While all cloud environments include certain administrative controls, private clouds offer additional layers of management. This allows administrators to track use, recover data, and monitor integration. Private clouds can also make it easier to control access to different areas of the cloud.

Finally, a hybrid cloud uses both environments. For many businesses, this combination allows for a smoother transition to cloud technology. We may also see it be used more in the future as IoT devices require more computing power closer to where the actual device is housed. This trend has been dubbed “edge computing.”

Common Threats and Solutions to Cloud Security

Some businesses have been hesitant to make the switch to cloud computing because they are under the impression that cloud computing is somehow more vulnerable. While cloud security does require diligence, it is subject to many of the same problems that typical IT security faces. With the right approach, you can continue to enjoy a secure network. Here are some of the most common threats to be aware of when designing cloud security and solutions that can be implemented to minimize threats:

Access. All three types of cloud environments offer more connection than traditional models. This creates more places for traffic to penetrate defenses. Access threats can be the result of malicious users, weak credential management and deliberate account hacks.

The Solution: In order to protect access and make sure that only authorized users have access to data is to require strong passwords and a multi-step authentication process, encrypt all data and enhance security at every level of the network.

Data loss and system corruption. Oftentimes, these problems are the result of a dynamic workload that is constantly changing.

The Solution: Design a network that is flexible, scalable, agile and able to respond quickly as data is transmitted at different speeds and the workload fluctuates.

Malware and Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs). These threats are deliberately designed to identify vulnerabilities in the cloud network allowing malicious parties to achieve data breaches.

The Solution: Realistically, there is no easy solution to these types of threats. Hackers will continue to try to find new ways to access data. That is why it is important to create a system that will alert administrators when there is unusual activity and allow teams to respond quickly.

Cloud computing can expand your capabilities without compromising security, but you will need to put a deliberate security plan in place. Once your cloud security has been improved, you will need to continue to monitor the system and make adjustments as devices and users are added, workloads change and new threats are identified. At Prancer, we can help you better understand your current cloud security, identify gaps and vulnerabilities, and help you improve security so that you can get the most out of your cloud computing. Contact us today with any questions and our team can help you get started.