Top 5 Cloud Security Challenges of 2024 and How to Mitigate Them

Cloud security is no longer just an IT concern—it's a business imperative. With cloud intrusions surging by 75% in the past year and attackers becoming increasingly skilled at exploiting cloud environments, the stakes have never been higher. According to CrowdStrike's 2024 Global Threat Report, adversaries are moving faster than ever, taking an average of just 62 minutes to spread from an initially compromised host to another within the cloud environment, with the fastest attackers doing so in a mere two minutes​.

Mission Cloud has partnered with CrowdStrike to combat these escalating threats. This powerful alliance merges advanced threat detection and response capabilities with deep cloud-managed services and security expertise, ensuring your cloud infrastructure is secure against even the most sophisticated cyber threats.

In this blog post, we'll explore the top five cloud security challenges and reveal how the partnership between Mission Cloud and CrowdStrike effectively mitigates these risks. From misconfigurations to rapidly changing threats, we will provide practical solutions to enhance your cloud security posture and keep your business safe.

Top Cloud Security Challenges of 2024

Challenge 1: Misconfiguration and Inadequate Change Control

Misconfigurations in cloud environments are a significant security risk, contributing to 36% of cloud breaches, as highlighted in CrowdStrike’s Global Threat Report 2024. These misconfigurations often occur due to human error, lack of proper change control mechanisms, or inadequate understanding of security settings, leading to unauthorized access, data breaches, and other security incidents. Misconfigurations like leaving default settings unchanged or failing to restrict access to sensitive resources can create vulnerabilities that attackers exploit.

Common AWS Misconfigurations:

• Public Buckets or Public Objects Inside Buckets: This permits unrestricted inbound traffic, which can expose sensitive data and lead to breaches.
• Not Using Access Logging: This hinders the ability to track and audit access to S3 buckets.
• Not Using Versioning + S3 Lifecycle: It's challenging to recover from errors and manage storage costs efficiently without versioning and lifecycle policies.
• Not Encrypting Critical Information: This leaves the data vulnerable to unauthorized access and breaches.

Challenge 2: Inadequate Identity, Credential, Access, and Key Management

Weak identity and access management practices pose significant security risks. CrowdStrike’s report indicates that compromised credentials were involved in 80% of breaches. These vulnerabilities often arise from weak password policies, lack of multi-factor authentication, and improper access controls. Such weaknesses enable attackers to gain unauthorized access, potentially leading to data breaches and other severe security incidents.

Common Problems:

• Weak Password Policies: Simple or reused passwords are easy targets for brute force or credential stuffing attacks.
• Lack of Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA): Without MFA, compromised passwords can easily lead to unauthorized access.
• Improper Access Controls: Excessive user privileges and poor access management increase the risk of insider threats and accidental data exposure.
• Poor Key Management: Inadequately protected encryption keys can be compromised, allowing attackers to decrypt sensitive data.

Challenge 3: Changing Attack Surface

As organizations increasingly adopt cloud services and applications, they need to proactively implement robust security measures to protect their expanding digital environments. The rapid pace of digital transformation means that new cloud-based assets, services, and applications are continuously being deployed. According to the 2024 Global Threat Report, the number of cloud-related security incidents has been steadily increasing, highlighting the need for continuous monitoring and adaptation to emerging threats​.

Key Issues:

• Dynamic Nature: Cloud environments are fluid, with resources constantly added or removed, leading to security configurations that may lag behind these changes.
• Shadow IT: Employees' unauthorized adoption of cloud services increases the risk of unmonitored and unsecured resources.
• Greater Exposure: More public-facing services mean a higher likelihood of exposure to external threats.

Challenge 4: Lack of Cloud Security Architecture, Strategy, and Knowledge

The challenge of designing and implementing a comprehensive cloud security architecture is a pressing concern for many organizations. With almost 80% of enterprises utilizing the cloud in most or all parts of their businesses, a rigorous and unified security strategy is more critical than ever. Despite widespread adoption, there is a gap in implementing robust security strategies across the industry. This significant gap highlights the necessity for strategic alignment in cloud security and underscores the heightened risk of cyber threats that businesses face today.

Key Issues:

• Widespread Adoption with Gaps in Security Strategies: Nearly 80% of enterprises use cloud services extensively, yet many lack a unified and rigorous security strategy.
• Expertise Deficiency: According to the World Economic Forum, the cybersecurity field faces a severe talent shortage, with four million job positions unfilled globally as of 2024. This scarcity is particularly pronounced in cloud security, which is characterized by its rapidly evolving technology landscape.
• Impact of the Expertise Gap: Organizations lacking trained cloud security personnel are at increased risk of deploying ineffective security measures, suffering from misconfigurations in cloud services, and exhibiting inadequate responses to security incidents.

These issues highlight the critical need for ongoing education and training in cloud security best practices to empower organizations to develop, implement, and maintain adequate security strategies that can evolve with changing technological and threat landscapes.

Challenge 5: Cloud Compliance

Navigating the complex landscape of cloud compliance remains a critical challenge for many organizations. As businesses increasingly rely on cloud solutions, they must meet diverse regulatory standards like PCI, GDPR, and HIPAA, each with unique requirements and penalties. CrowdStrike’s 2024 report reveals that 52% of organizations view compliance with multiple frameworks as a top concern, underscoring the critical need for comprehensive compliance measures within cloud security strategies.

Key Issues:

• Constantly Changing Regulations: Regulatory frameworks are continually updated to address new security threats and data privacy concerns, requiring organizations to stay informed and agile in their compliance strategies.
• Global Differences: Companies operating internationally must comply with a wide range of data protection laws, which complicate compliance efforts and increase the potential for inadvertent violations.

Consequences of Non-Compliance:

• Financial Penalties: Fines for non-compliance can be substantial. For instance, GDPR violations can result in fines of up to 4% of annual global turnover or €20 million, whichever is greater.
• Reputational Damage: Beyond financial loss, non-compliance can severely damage a company’s reputation, eroding customer trust and potentially leading to loss of business.

How Mission Cloud and CrowdStrike Can Help You Mitigate These Challenges

Let’s explore how Mission Cloud and CrowdStrike address the previously mentioned challenges. Mission Cloud One is a comprehensive managed service for AWS optimization, operations, and security. Our managed service strongly emphasizes security, which is essential for effectively managing an AWS environment.

As a Mission Cloud One customer, you gain access to CrowdStrike Falcon Complete, a 24/7 managed detection and response service. This crucial service monitors your systems and ensures compliance with necessary regulatory standards. By integrating closely with the CrowdStrike Security Operations Center (SOC), we establish a combined management team to respond to and remediate incidents as they occur swiftly.

Configuration Management and Assessment

Mission Cloud configures security services and measures environments against AWS’s Well-Architected Framework, ensuring adherence to best practices and reducing the risk of human error. By leveraging AWS GuardDuty and other AWS native security services alongside CrowdStrike Falcon Complete, Mission Cloud helps you build a robust security posture.

Benefits:

• Continuous Monitoring and Real-Time Alerts: CrowdStrike Falcon Complete provides constant monitoring and real-time alerts to ensure any misconfigurations are detected and addressed promptly.
• Enhanced Visibility into Security Status: Comprehensive visibility into the security status of your cloud environment allows for early detection and remediation of any misconfiguration issues.
• Compliance with Best Practices and Frameworks: Ensures your cloud configurations align with AWS’s Well-Architected Framework, reducing the risk of vulnerabilities due to misconfigurations.

Identity and Access Management (IAM)

Mission Cloud guides you to create strong IAM practices using AWS IAM, CloudTrail, and other AWS native services, while CrowdStrike Falcon Complete continuously monitors endpoint activity to detect unauthorized access and suspicious behaviors. This combination ensures that only authorized users can access critical resources.

Benefits:

• Strong Access Controls: The implementation of stringent access control policies limits access to sensitive data and resources.
• Real-Time Detection: CrowdStrike Falcon’s continuous monitoring capabilities provide real-time detection and alerting of unauthorized access attempts.
• Swift Response: Immediate alerts and actionable insights enable quick response to potential security incidents.

Comprehensive Threat Detection for Expanding Attack Surfaces

CrowdStrike Falcon Complete employs continuous threat hunting and advanced analytics to monitor your attack surface. This includes detecting vulnerabilities in container images, serverless environments, and network configurations. By aligning with security best practices and adopting proactive measures, we help reduce your attack surface, limit your blast radius, and adapt to changing threats.

Benefits:

• Proactive Threat Identification: Continuous threat hunting and monitoring ensure that new and emerging threats are identified before they can cause harm.
• Broad Protection: Comprehensive security measures protect various cloud services and applications, reducing the risk of breaches.
• Real-Time Monitoring and Response: CrowdStrike Falcon’s advanced analytics provide real-time insights and response capabilities to address threats as they arise.

Cloud Security Architecture, Strategy, and Knowledge Development

Mission Cloud helps organizations design and implement a comprehensive cloud security architecture, developing a clear strategy and providing guidance on best practices. To supplement skills gaps, we entrust incident response and remediation to CrowdStrike's dedicated security experts, eliminating the need for organizations to rely on on-call or ad hoc expertise.

Benefits:

• Consistent Security Measures: Ensures that security practices are uniformly applied across the cloud infrastructure, reducing the risk of security gaps.
• Reduced Gaps and Vulnerabilities: A well-designed security architecture and strategy minimizes vulnerabilities and strengthens the overall security posture.
• Expert Guidance: Access to cloud security experts ensures the implementation of industry best practices.

Unified Compliance Reporting

Mission Cloud and CrowdStrike Falcon provide unified compliance reporting, helping organizations meet regulatory standards such as PCI, GDPR, and HIPAA. This ensures that cloud environments are secure and compliant with industry regulations.

Benefits:

• Simplified Compliance Management: Unified reporting and monitoring simplify managing and maintaining compliance with multiple regulatory frameworks.
• Expanded Compliance Readiness: Continuous assessment and comprehensive reporting prepare your organization for audits and regulatory reviews.

Organizations can effectively mitigate top cloud security challenges by leveraging the combined strengths of Mission Cloud and CrowdStrike Falcon Complete. This integrated approach ensures robust security, continuous protection, and compliance, providing peace of mind for businesses operating in cloud environments.

Take the Next Step in Securing Your Cloud Environment

Navigating the complexities of cloud security can be challenging, but you don’t have to do it alone. If you’re struggling with challenges such as misconfigurations, inadequate change control, rapidly evolving attack surfaces, or compliance issues, consider partnering with a managed cloud services provider specializing in security.

Mission Cloud, a Premier Tier AWS Services Partner, combines deep technical expertise with a commitment to customer success. Our partnership with CrowdStrike brings advanced threat detection and response capabilities to protect your cloud infrastructure against even the most sophisticated cyber threats.

Get Started Today

Are you ready to enhance your cloud security and ensure compliance with industry regulations? Connect with a Cloud advisor today. We’ll work closely with you to understand your current environment and business objectives. We will provide personalized recommendations on how Mission Cloud and CrowdStrike can support your growth, optimize your infrastructure, and drive long-term success.