https://www.channelfutures.com/wp-content/themes/channelfutures_child/assets/images/logo/footer-new-logo.png
  • Home
  • Technologies
    • Back
    • SDN/SD-WAN
    • Cloud
    • RMM/PSA
    • Security
    • Telephony/UC/Collaboration
    • Cable
    • Mobility & Wireless
    • Fiber/Ethernet
    • Data Centers
    • Backup & Disaster Recovery
    • IoT
    • Desktop
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • Analytics
  • Strategy
    • Back
    • Mergers and Acquisitions
    • Channel Research
    • Business Models
    • Distribution
    • Technology Solutions Brokerages
    • Sales & Marketing
    • Best Practices
    • Vertical Markets
    • Regulation & Compliance
  • MSP 501
    • Back
    • 2022 MSP 501 Rankings
    • 2022 NextGen 101 Rankings
  • Intelligence
    • Back
    • Galleries
    • Podcasts
    • From the Industry
    • Reports/Digital Issues
    • Webinars
    • White Papers
  • Channel Futures TV
  • EMEA
  • Channel Chatter
    • Back
    • People on the Move
    • New/Changing Channel Programs
    • New Products & Services
    • Industry Honors
  • Resources
    • Back
    • Advisory Boards
    • Industry Organizations
    • Our Sponsors
    • Advertise
    • 2022 Editorial Calendar
  • Awards
    • Back
    • 2022 MSP 501
    • Channel Influencers
    • Circle of Excellence
    • DE&I 101
    • Channel Partners 101 (CP 101)
  • Events
    • Back
    • CP Conference & Expo
    • MSP Summit
    • Channel Partners Europe
    • Channel Partners Event Coverage
    • Webinars
    • Industry Events
  • About Us
  • DE&I
Channel Futures
  • NEWSLETTER
  • Home
  • Technologies
    • Back
    • SDN/SD-WAN
    • Cloud
    • RMM/PSA
    • Security
    • Telephony/UC/Collaboration
    • Cable
    • Mobility & Wireless
    • Fiber/Ethernet
    • Data Centers
    • Backup & Disaster Recovery
    • IoT
    • Desktop
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • Analytics
  • Strategy
    • Back
    • Mergers and Acquisitions
    • Channel Research
    • Business Models
    • Distribution
    • Technology Solutions Brokerages
    • Sales & Marketing
    • Best Practices
    • Vertical Markets
    • Regulation & Compliance
  • MSP 501
    • Back
    • 2022 MSP 501 Rankings
    • 2022 NextGen 101 Rankings
  • Intelligence
    • Back
    • Galleries
    • Podcasts
    • From the Industry
    • Reports/Digital Issues
    • Webinars
    • White Papers
  • Channel Futures TV
  • EMEA
  • Channel Chatter
    • Back
    • People on the Move
    • New/Changing Channel Programs
    • New Products & Services
    • Industry Honors
  • Resources
    • Back
    • Advisory Boards
    • Industry Organizations
    • Our Sponsors
    • Advertise
    • 2022 Editorial Calendar
  • Awards
    • Back
    • 2022 MSP 501
    • Channel Influencers
    • Circle of Excellence
    • DE&I 101
    • Channel Partners 101 (CP 101)
  • Events
    • Back
    • CP Conference & Expo
    • MSP Summit
    • Channel Partners Europe
    • Channel Partners Event Coverage
    • Webinars
    • Industry Events
  • About Us
  • DE&I
    • Newsletter
  • REGISTER
  • MSPs
  • VARs / SIs
  • Agents
  • Cloud Service Providers
  • Channel Partners Events
 Channel Futures

MSSP Insider


Shutterstock

Complex cloud security

MSSPs Can Be Key to Managing Security in Complex Cloud Environments

  • Written by Jon Bove
  • July 19, 2019
Cloud expands the potential attack surface and can introduce a new level of security complexity.
Fortinet's Jon Bove

Jon Bove

In this era of the cloud, IDC forecasts that by 2020, more than 90%  of enterprises will be using multiple cloud-based services and platforms. Whatever the size of your customers, their adoption of cloud-based services offers many benefits

It’s not just users who benefit from cloud services. Service providers benefit as well. Done right, software-as-a-service (SaaS) has all the multitenancy functionality that makes managing and maintaining a customer base a snap. Just as importantly, it makes you — as a channel partner — more competitive in this cloud-first world. Cloud services are typically low-touch and low-cost — eliminating trips to customer locations and even remote troubleshooting, providing cost savings that can be passed on to the customer.

Security Challenges

As with any solution, the cloud expands the potential attack surface. But because of its dynamic elasticity and scalability, and the fact that each cloud environment runs differently, cloud — and especially multicloud — deployment introduces a new level of complexity into securing an organization. Part of the issue is that a multicloud strategy is rarely ever planned. It’s usually something that happens organically, to address an emergent need. And worse, the IT team usually only comes in after the fact to retrofit a security strategy.

It all starts innocently enough with an employee using an Office 365 document, someone else subscribing to Dropbox, another employee uploading a document onto Google Drive to share and someone else creating a website using the public cloud.

All of a sudden, your customers are consuming services from four different cloud providers. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Because of the ease of creating a cloud network — basically, anyone with a credit card can set one up — lines of business may even have their own cloud infrastructures in place to develop or run applications or to offload compute requirements. Often, this is the result of an implicit approval to leverage the cloud to meet digital transformation requirements. Industries that rely heavily on technology, such as manufacturing, high-tech and telecom, are being led by executive management to become 100% cloud, including infrastructure and applications.

From a security standpoint, your customer can quickly lose control of the information flow. Each one of these new activities adds to the risk. While on a case-by-case basis each cloud service selection makes sense, when they’re looked at in the aggregate, it hits home that this is a patchwork of cloud services with unknown or disconnected security or data management policies in place.

And, exposure to risk increases with each cloud app an employee logs onto. If a breach of one of those apps occurs, the security team now faces the risk of information not being controlled by corporate IT becoming publicly available. It’s the nature of distributed information to lessen visibility, leading inevitably to a situation where the security risk level is unknown or, worse, nonexistent.

Who’s Responsible?

The cloud runs on a shared responsibility model with the guiding principle being that if you touch it, it’s your responsibility. If you change the configuration option on the cloud, you’re now responsible for what happens as a result of that change. If you’ve uploaded data to the cloud, it’s your responsibility to make sure that it’s secure.

To make everything clear and keep customers informed and happy, cloud providers often offer a great amount of documentation about what they provide — resiliency and security — and what they don’t provide. This means that organizations are responsible, as difficult as it may be, to read exactly where the demarcation is between the cloud provider’s responsibility and their own responsibility to keep services up and running.

Help Is on the Way

Fortunately, MSPs can offer security-as-a-service to mitigate these challenges. This is often a welcome alternative to achieve …

  • Page 1
  • Page 2
Tags: MSPs Business of Security Cloud and Edge MSSP Insider Security

Most Recent


  • Zero Trust
    In a World Where Security and Network Have Converged, ZTNA Is Key
    Align ZTNA with SD-WAN to give maximum level of secure access but still offer optimized experience.
  • Black Hat expo hall 2022
    The Gately Report: Black Hat USA Edition with Cisco, IBM, CISA, More
    Black Hat USA has come roaring back since the COVID-19 pandemic.
  • Making Waves
    7 Channel People Making Waves This Week at Microsoft, Rackspace, RingCentral, Avaya
    Hackers targeted one UCaaS firm by impersonating the company's IT department.
  • Welcome Mat
    Okta Names Splunk Vet New Global Channel Chief
    Okta's global channel chief left the company in June.

One comment

  1. Avatar .1043 July 23, 2019 @ 1:15 am
    Reply

    Nice Article Jon Bove.Thanks for sharing insights.
    We are really seeing this trend of Devops + Security combination and requests from our customers as well.Security become so vital for all types of businesses.We help our customers with Devops consulting services and Devops As A service model with cloud security as one of key solution.Here is our website for more info : http://www.huntertechglobal.com

    Best wishes
    Krishna.

Leave a comment Cancel reply

-or-

Log in with your Channel Futures account

Alternatively, post a comment by completing the form below:

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Content

  • zero trust security
    Leveraging Partner Expertise to Build a Zero-Trust Strategy
  • Security Vulnerability
    Older Fortinet Vulnerabilities Lead to Attack on Local Government Office
  • Threats
    Cybersecurity and Threat Protection: MSSPs, Get Your Advice Here
  • DevSecOps
    ServiceNow, Microsoft Set to Deliver Broad SecOps Integration

Upcoming Events

View all

MSP Summit

September 13, 2022 - September 16, 2022

Channel Partners Conference & Expo

May 1, 2023 - May 4, 2023

Galleries

View all

The Gately Report: Black Hat USA Edition with Cisco, IBM, CISA, More

August 12, 2022

7 Channel People Making Waves This Week at Microsoft, Rackspace, RingCentral, Avaya

August 12, 2022

Oracle Cloud & AT&T, AWS Lead Cloud News Roundup

August 12, 2022

Industry Perspectives

View all

How to Take Shared Responsibility for Securing Cloud

August 11, 2022

Seize the Application Modernization Opportunity

August 2, 2022

A Growth Mindset: Your Organization’s Strategic Differentiator

August 1, 2022

Webinars

View all

Outsmarting RaaS: Implementation Strategies To Help Your Clients Before, During, and After a Ransomware Attack

August 23, 2022

Why it is Important to Upgrade Aging Servers and How to use Live Optics to Upgrade Efficiently

August 25, 2022

Executives at Home are Not Alright: An Intro to Digital Executive Protection

September 8, 2022

White Papers

View all

Work Goes Remote – (and Other Top ITOps Trends)

May 25, 2022

The New Bottom Line: How MSPs Can Meet the Healthcare Crisis While Evolving Their Businesses

April 19, 2022

How to build a Security Operations Center (on a budget)

April 4, 2022

Channel Futures TV

View all

ThreatLocker Preaches Zero Trust, Addresses Industry Competition

ScienceLogic Debuts New Partner Portal

August 9, 2022

Vonage a ‘Single Communications Stack Provider’ for Partners, Customers

June 27, 2022

IBM, Partners and the $1 Trillion Hybrid Cloud Opportunity

June 26, 2022

Twitter

ChannelFutures

.@splunk vet Bill Hustad named @Okta's new #channelchief. dlvr.it/SWXmws https://t.co/ILQesul0Cz

August 12, 2022
ChannelFutures

The Gately Report: #BHUSA edition with @Hacker0x01, @Cisco, @SaltSecurity, @CISAgov, @ExtraHop, @IBMSecurity, more.… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

August 12, 2022
ChannelFutures

Channel People Making Waves Include: @kencarnesi, @szebenisz, @vasujakkal, @brettsmith52, @DaveMichels… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

August 12, 2022
ChannelFutures

Nancy Henriquez, VP of Sales & Marketing at MSP 501 award-winning @synetek, touches on the importance of gathering… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

August 12, 2022
ChannelFutures

.@Equinix's new hire is a familiar face in the telco channel. dlvr.it/SWXV6v https://t.co/jIg0LrZ4DO

August 12, 2022
ChannelFutures

Missed the news this week from @OracleCloud and @ATTBusiness? We've got it here. Plus, news from @AWSCloud and… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

August 12, 2022
ChannelFutures

Huge channel-impacting acquisitions in the past month. We've got details on @IBM, @nokia, @GoTo, @EnsonoIT,… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

August 12, 2022
ChannelFutures

Boost privacy by design with #shiftleft mindset and add #security to cloud deployments from start, says… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

August 12, 2022

MSP 501

The industry's largest and most comprehensive partner awards program.

Newsletters and Updates

Sign up for The Channel Report, Channel Futures Update, MSP 501 Newsletter and more.

Live Channel Events

Get the latest information on the next industry-leading Channel Partners event.

Galleries

Educational slide shows and images from live events.

Media Kit And Advertising

Want to reach our audience? Access our media kit.

DISCOVER MORE FROM INFORMA TECH

  • Channel Partners Events
  • Telecoms.com
  • MSP 501
  • Black Hat
  • IoT World Today
  • Omdia

WORKING WITH US

  • Contact
  • About Us
  • Advertise
  • Newsletter

FOLLOW Channel Futures ON SOCIAL

  • Privacy
  • CCPA: “Do Not Sell My Data”
  • Cookie Policy
  • Terms
Copyright © 2022 Informa PLC. Informa PLC is registered in England and Wales with company number 8860726 whose registered and Head office is 5 Howick Place, London, SW1P 1WG.
This website uses cookies, including third party ones, to allow for analysis of how people use our website in order to improve your experience and our services. By continuing to use our website, you agree to the use of such cookies. Click here for more information on our Cookie Policy and Privacy Policy.
X