As the concept of cloud computing shifts further from a startup-only domain to a world where more and more large enterprises are shifting to a serverless architecture, the concept of Cloud Security will become crucial to organizations in the cloud. However, most organizations have a hard time understanding the importance of cloud security when launching a new cloud platform. As a result, according to Allied Market Research, the worldwide market for cloud security solutions is predicted to rise to a staggering $8.9 billion by 2020. Some experts believe that every business organization will be forced to increase its operating budget to ensure data security and safeguard the digital presence of the organization. As such, here are the top 5 cloud security trends in 2019 which you should keep an eye on throughout the year.
#1 – Cloud Providers Take a More Active Role in Security
As more organizations choose to adopt a serverless architecture to abstract out more of the technology management, cloud providers will be forced to step in more to ensure comprehensive security. Such responsibilities will include everything from physical security, operating system security which includes configurations and patches, network security, and container or virtual machine security. Due to the lack of comprehensive compliance on the part of organizations who are – for example – unintentionally exposing their cloud storage devices publicly by way of risky configurations, many high-profile cloud security breaches have occurred. Expect cloud providers to push for better compliance by publishing more cloud-native guidelines and research, or for more organizations to go serverless entirely to combat this issue.
#2 – BlockChain Implementations Help Secure Data
Created specifically for protecting cryptocurrency transactions, blockchain architecture takes a step out of the realm of vague buzzwords into real cloud security applications. It has grown into the most effective way of tracing cybercrimes since data is decentralized and distributed across the blockchain network. In essence, blockchain architecture protects data by ensuring that it’s not all stored in one place and distributes transaction records among other users who are also in the blockchain network. This architecture helps deter external hacking and assists teams to safeguard data as other participants in the blockchain network could detect breaches. Furthermore, some would regard blockchain as one of the biggest cloud security trends in 2019 to watch out for–particularly for highly-regulated industries such as medicine, education, and law.
#3 – The Rise of DevSecOps
As an increasing number of cloud systems and their security responsibilities shift to the cloud providers, organizations will find themselves dealing less with the details of handling physical, operating system, and network security. Obviously, this shift in responsibility for security would be most noticeable in serverless systems where the only security implications for application developers would be in the application layer itself. As a result, there will be a shift away from traditional IT security teams with organization-wide security strategies to an expectation for developers to become more involved with and responsible for security. This expectation will cause a demand for a more specialized developer that is more focused on ensuring security within the organization’s cloud environment and the deployment process is compliant. One of the expected cloud security trends in 2019 is the increased demand in the marketplace for the adoption of the Development Security Operations (DevSecOps) movement across the board for all companies that are serious about their cloud security.
#4 – Cloud Security Automation
In the cloud, security means more than purchasing security software. Ensuring the safety and security of a cloud environment involves an ongoing process of monitoring, assessing, and implementing security patches. This sort of activity is a 24-hour-a-day, 7-days-a-week process. As the cloud security sector moves forward, it will become more common for organizations to adopt this constant vigilance mentality toward safeguarding their cloud environments. Naturally, this will drive a demand for abstraction or automation that will provide organizations with a means to rapidly launch security responses to many cloud events. For example, automating certain aspects of cloud environments will open many doors for more responsive security functions for combatting common cyber attacks such as service abuse, denial-of-service attacks, and cryptojacking. Automation can also help with security compliance when spinning up new environments to prevent these assets from being exposed outside the normal deployment pipeline, or safeguarding the deployment pipeline by running compliance and security checks during deployment.
#5 – Traditional Security Organizations Begin to Offer Cloud-Native Security
Traditional security vendors have already begun to recognize that cloud environments are no longer the domain of startups. As corporate, healthcare, finance, and even government organizations begin to recognize that public cloud environments are not less secure than in-house setups and – as a result – begin to adopt cloud environments, traditional security firms are making moves in the cloud security sector to capture this portion of the market. A well-known example is the tech security firm Symantec which owns Norton, Odyssey Software, and Blue Coat Systems. Symantec already offers several cloud-security and monitoring solutions and plans to expand further into the sector. As the adoption of serverless architectures rises, so will demand cloud-native security solutions. By offering these cloud-native security solutions as well as security consulting for serverless and container-based environments, traditional security organizations will help drive more cloud adoption in 2019. Cloud Security as a Service will be a big factor in the $8.9 billion cloud security market predicted for 2020, and traditional vendors – already having many security experts at their disposal – are already in a unique position to pivot swiftly into that sector.
With the prospect of advancements in cloud security and an increase in cloud adoption by older and more complex organizations, the future looks to be very bright for the cloud. Looking forward, we can expect to see this relatively new sector of cloud-based computing experience a veritable gold rush of activity and innovation, and just like the Old West, there will be plenty of people on both sides – those looking to cause harm and those looking to prevent it. However, with projected spending of $8.9 billion on security, it’s easy to see how the good guys will be at an advantage, hopefully creating a safer and more secure cloud for all of us.