While 62% of organizations are rapidly expanding their cloud footprint, only 35% can actually detect security incidents through their tools – revealing a dangerous gap between cloud adoption and cloud protection. This comprehensive guide breaks down how to build a cloud security architecture that bridges that gap, turning overwhelming complexity into manageable, risk-based strategies that actually work.
Moving to the cloud is front of mind for many businesses. The cloud offers the benefits of elasticity, potential cost savings, and more efficient resourcing. However, in all the conversations about the benefits of the cloud, security is rarely brought up. While migration to a cloud service does change your risk profile, many of the breaches are not the fault of the cloud provider and are instead the result of a failure to consider security at the forefront of any cloud deployment. The rush to the cloud is leaving gaps in security that are much harder to address ad hoc.
Things look different in the cloud. Small omissions that might have gone unnoticed on a private network may now be exposed to the world, increasing security risks dramatically — provided that these risks are not identified at the outset.
This research project is about identifying the risks within your environment and finding concrete solutions to mitigate those risks. You are required to manage identities, secure your data and infrastructure, detect threats, and respond/recover. What are the technologies and services that you can use to enforce controls and position yourself for secure success in the cloud?
The cloud can bring a great deal of benefits, but only if you can use it securely.
Leveraging the cloud introduces IT professionals to a new world that they are tasked with securing. Consumers do not know what security services they need and when to implement them. With many cloud vendors proposing to share the security responsibility, it can be a challenge for organizations to develop a clear understanding of how they can best secure their data off-premises.
Ensuring cloud security is a difficult task. You may be moving workloads or currently have workloads in the cloud. The following are key questions you will have to answer when making the move or maintaining the cloud:
Without having a baseline of knowledge before migrating to the cloud, businesses will experience growing pains as part of securely adjusting their workloads.
Creating a successful cloud security architecture requires you to know:
In addition, cloud adoption may be a top priority, but concerns over data security are holding back cloud deployments. According to the “Check Point Cloud Security Report, 2025” (Checkpoint) there are three primary concerns for cloud security, revolving around:
Cloud growth is outpacing security readiness
Detection tools are falling short
Alert fatigue and tool sprawl are delaying response
The cloud is comprised of five key elements, all of which need to be present for the platform to be counted as a cloud service:
Your cloud security architecture needs to be strategic, realistic, and based on risk. The National Institute of Standards and Technology approach to cloud security is to include everything of high risk into your cloud architecture to be deemed secure. However, you can still have a robust and secure cloud architecture by using a risk-based approach to identify the necessary controls and mitigating services for your environment.
If this is overwhelming, you are not alone. It is completely okay to get started by looking to your peers for guidance:
Cloud security is also a shared responsibility, and IT has always involved an element of shared responsibility. From internet service providers (ISPs) to software vendors — from managed service providers and value-added resellers (VARs) to consultants — IT departments have been sharing responsibility for years. The cloud brings this relationship into sharper focus, and old security techniques may no longer be as effective as they once were.
Cloud providers are responsible for the security of the cloud — that is to say, they manage the hardware, facilities, and other physical components of the cloud, along with some of the software and cloud networking. The consumer maintains responsibility for security in the cloud. Identity and access management, data classification, server-side encryption, networking traffic — all these areas need to be managed by the cloud consumer.
As you shift from On-Premises to Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), you will invariably give more responsibilities over to the provider. While there is a general rule, there are exceptions, which means you may be responsible even under a SaaS service level.
Cloud security will be a top priority – let your security reflect that importance. According to Gartner’s 2025 study, the public cloud will replace traditional solutions for apps, infrastructure, business process services, and system infrastructure by 2025, compared to 41% in 2022. The same study cited that the amount spent on application software will increase from 57.7% to 65.9% in 2025, and that the percentage of cloud-based application software expenditures will rise from 57.7% in 2022 to 65.9% in 2025.
Transitioning to the cloud can bring tremendous value as access to new services and capabilities can become prevalent as a business enabler. However, as with any change, there is an element of risk.
IT teams need to take steps to ensure that any cloud deployments meet high security standards, but the challenge for IT security professionals becomes enabling access to the features and capabilities that cloud services can provide without putting the organization at undue risk. Swing too far in either direction, and the cloud deployment will not succeed – either through over-encumbrance or failure to mitigate crucial security risks.
Security professionals need to understand the tools and strategies at their disposal to appropriately secure and govern their environments, since Software-as-a-Service requires sharing more responsibility for cloud security with the vendor than Infrastructure-as-a-Service or Provider-as-a-Service. Regardless of the service level you choose, each will require knowledge of their suitability and associated risks.
Cloud security needs to be taken just as seriously as on-premises security. Identifying the components of your cloud security architecture can be accomplished in three key steps, according to our partners at Info-Tech:
The benefits to your IT team in planning your cloud security architecture can allow the IT Team to determine whether moving to the cloud is appropriate for their needs. IT will also have control and visibility over the environment and the specific controls and risks that will need to be mitigated. Additionally, IT will no longer have to disallow certain applications and services because they are cloud-based.
Access to cloud-based services opens worlds of productivity not available to those confined to premises. A few new tools, including productivity suites, IT service management (ITSM) software, and enterprise resource planning (ERP) platforms, are cloud exclusive.
The benefits to your business can include business managers confident of their move to the cloud having considered both the risk and effort involved in the deployment. Your business can also gain an in-depth understanding of the governance aspects of cloud security and interconnectivity, and know which services are appropriate for them to implement based on their environmental risks.
We believe in listening to our clients and facilitating robust dialogue to learn the full picture of the project from multiple perspectives. We craft solutions that are tailored to our client’s needs, emphasizing a robust process that engages the correct stakeholders throughout the project so that once it’s complete, our clients can continue to manage it successfully.
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