Top 6 Hybrid Cloud Security Challenges

Hybrid cloud environments have emerged as the new normal as businesses transition to the cloud. Such a move provides flexibility and scalability without equal; any organization can leverage its existing on-prem infrastructure while tapping into cloud services. However, the technological leap involved here creates a myriad of security concerns. Combining disparate cloud services with on-prem infrastructures has presented a unique set of vulnerabilities that make security a formidable challenge.

In hybrid cloud environments, one misconfiguration or an overlooked vulnerability can create devastating data breaches, extensive downtime, and hefty fines related to compliance. In hybrid clouds, the constant scaling up and down of resources makes it a complex landscape in terms of security. With increased reliance on these environments, the potential attack will surface, and one can’t help but question whether it is adequately protected. The unease of not knowing what the next threat is likely to come from is highly overwhelming, and that’s why there is a pressing need for deeper insights into specific challenges. Let’s discuss them below.

What Are the Challenges of Hybrid Cloud Environments?

Hybrid cloud environments introduce a blend of on-premises infrastructure, private cloud services, and public cloud solutions. This mix provides agility and scalability but also exposes organizations to potential vulnerabilities. The complexity of managing a diverse set of environments can increase the risk of data breaches, compliance failures, and operational inefficiencies. Here are some common vulnerabilities that companies may encounter:

• Data Exposure: Data stored in the cloud may be accessible to unauthorized users if not properly secured.
• Misconfigured APIs: Poorly configured application programming interfaces (API’s) can provide cybercriminals with a pathway into the system.
• Inconsistent Security Policies: Inconsistent security measures between on-premises and cloud environments can create gaps, making it easier for attackers to exploit.

Understanding these challenges can help businesses build a more secure hybrid cloud strategy and reduce the risk associated with cloud adoption.

Hybrid Cloud Security Challenges

Navigating hybrid cloud security involves recognizing the specific challenges that arise when blending different environments. Below, we’ve identified six key security challenges and how businesses can address them.

#1. Visibility

Visibility is critical in hybrid cloud environments because organizations need a clear view of data, applications, and network traffic. Without adequate visibility, identifying potential security risks becomes difficult, leading to delayed responses to threats.

How to mitigate it?

To enhance visibility, organizations should adopt cloud monitoring tools that provide real-time insights into user activity and data flows across both cloud and on-premises environments. These tools can integrate with existing security information and event management (SIEM) systems to provide a unified view of potential threats. Additionally, leveraging automated alerts for unusual behavior can help security teams respond quickly to suspicious activities.

#2. Compliance and Governance

Compliance and governance are major concerns for businesses using hybrid cloud environments. Different regulatory requirements may apply depending on where data is stored, processed, and transmitted. This complexity makes it challenging to maintain consistent compliance across multiple environments.

How to Mitigate It?

Organizations should implement a robust compliance framework that aligns with regulations such as GDPR, HIPAA, or PCI-DSS. This includes using data classification tools to identify and categorize sensitive information and establishing clear policies for data handling and storage. Regular audits and vulnerability assessments can also help ensure that security measures remain effective and aligned with regulatory standards. Utilizing tools that automate compliance checks can further simplify this process.

#3. Network Integration

Network integration is another critical challenge when managing a hybrid cloud environment. Integrating on-premises networks with cloud networks requires careful planning to ensure secure data transfer and connectivity. Without proper network security measures, hybrid cloud setups may become vulnerable to breaches and data interception.

How to Mitigate it?

Secure network integration starts with implementing Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) or Software-Defined Wide Area Networks (SD-WAN) to create secure tunnels between on-premises and cloud networks. Network segmentation can also isolate sensitive data, reducing the risk of unauthorized access. Additionally, leveraging encryption for data in transit and using secure API gateways can further protect data as it moves between environments.

#4. Data Management and Protection

Managing data in a hybrid cloud environment can become complex, especially when dealing with different storage and backup solutions across platforms. Without a consistent strategy, data could become vulnerable to accidental deletion, corruption, or unauthorized access.

How to Mitigate it?

Implementing a data protection strategy that includes regular backups and encryption is essential. Consider using cloud-native backup solutions that automatically replicate data across multiple regions and environments, ensuring redundancy. Additionally, data loss prevention (DLP) tools can monitor and control data transfer, helping to prevent unauthorized access or leaks.

#5. Identity and Access Management (IAM)

Hybrid cloud environments often involve multiple access points, making identity and access management (IAM) a critical challenge. Poorly managed access can result in unauthorized users gaining entry to sensitive data or systems.

How to Mitigate it?

Adopting a centralized IAM solution can simplify managing user access across both on-premises and cloud environments. Multi-factor authentication (MFA) and role-based access control (RBAC) can further enhance security by ensuring that only authorized users have access to specific resources. Additionally, implementing single sign-on (SSO) can provide users with seamless access while maintaining strict authentication requirements.

#6. Security Monitoring and Incident Response

In a hybrid cloud environment, it can be challenging to maintain consistent security monitoring across different platforms. This can result in delayed responses to incidents or gaps in threat detection.

How to Mitigate it?

To address this challenge, organizations should implement a centralized security monitoring solution that can ingest logs and alerts from both cloud and on-premises systems. This enables a comprehensive view of potential threats and simplifies incident response. Automating response processes through tools like security orchestration, automation, and response (SOAR) can further streamline incident management, reducing response times and minimizing the impact of security breaches.

SentinelOne for Cloud Security

SentinelOne’s AI-powered CNAPP gives you Deep Visibility® of your environment. It provides active defense against AI-powered attacks and next-gen investigation and response capabilities. It can protect single, hybrid, on-prem, and multi-cloud environments.

Here are the key features of its agentless CNAPP:

• Singularity™ Cloud Security can enforce shift-left security and enable developers to identify vulnerabilities before they reach production with agentless scanning of infrastructure-as-code templates, code repositories, and container registries. It significantly reduces your overall attack surface.
• Context-aware Purple AI™ provides contextual summaries of alerts, suggested next steps and the option to seamlessly start an in-depth investigation aided by the power of generative and agentic AI – all documented in one investigation notebook. SentinelOne uses Hyperautomation workflows and no-code security automation.
• SentinelOne automatically remediates cloud misconfigurations via 1-click threat remediation. It addresses misconfigurations across resources, lateral movement pathways, and impact radius which are displayed in graphs.
• SentinelOne’s unique Offensive Security Engine™ produces evidence-backed Verified Exploit Paths™. Its secret scanning detects 750+ types of secrets and cloud credentials in code repositories and prevents unauthorized cloud access.
• SentinelOne’s runtime CWPP agent detects and stops runtime threats like ransomware, zero-days, fileless attacks, etc. It supports 14 major Linux distributions and 20 years of Windows Server, including AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and private cloud
• Monitors continuous security posture of new or current cloud services, focusing on security concerns and recommended practices, and notifying of security defaults.
• Infrastructure as a Code (IaC) Scanning: Compares IaC configuration and implementation to other standards like CIS benchmark and PCI-DSS. To prevent merge and pull requests with hardcoded secrets, support for CI/CD integration can be employed. SentinelOne’s IaC security identifies issues before production and eliminates them before they escalate.
• SentinelOne finds the cloud resources/assets with known CVEs (Intelligence from 10 or more sources with thorough coverage) and handles various vulnerabilities. Singularity Cloud Detection Security (CDS) offers malware scanning that goes beyond signatures and it uses a proprietary static AI engine that automatically quarantines malicious files in near real-time. File scans can be conducted locally and no sensitive data leaves the environment before being checked.
• Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM): CSPM simplifies compliance and features over 2,000 built-in checks to streamline cloud audits. It also combines Kubernetes Secrets Posture Management (KSPM) capabilities.
• Graph Explorer: It visualizes relationships between resources, business services, images, and further simplifies cloud investigations.
• Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) reporting for agentless applications and security vulnerability testing for virtual machine snapshots.

Moving On

Securing a hybrid cloud environment requires a strategic approach that addresses the unique challenges of managing a blend of on-premises and cloud infrastructure. By focusing on key areas such as visibility, compliance, network integration, and identity management, businesses can build a secure hybrid cloud strategy that meets their operational needs. Using solutions like SentinelOne Singularity™ Cloud Workload Security further enhances security, providing real-time threat detection and automated responses to potential risks. With the right tools and strategies in place, organizations can enjoy the benefits of a hybrid cloud environment while keeping their data and systems secure.