How to Conduct a Cloud Security Risk Assessment

Discover the benefits of cloud risk assessment for your business and get a checklist for efficiently evaluating your cloud security risks  

The aim of conducting a cloud risk assessment is to verify that the system and data being considered for migration to the cloud don't bring about any unforeseen risks to the organization. The primary objective is to uphold the confidentiality, integrity, availability, and privacy of information processing, while also ensuring that identified risks remain within acceptable thresholds.  

In a shared responsibility model, the Cloud Service Provider (CSP) is responsible for managing the security and compliance of the cloud as the provider. The customer remains responsible for managing and configuring security and compliance in the cloud following their needs and risk tolerance.  

In this article, the main benefits of the cloud security risk assessment are shared along with the checklist on how to efficiently evaluate your cloud security risks.

How Cloud Risk Assessment Benefits Your Business

Along with a massive increase in the number of businesses having migrated to the cloud, the threats to cloud-based assets increased. Because of this, it has become increasingly difficult for businesses to gain full visibility over their cloud-based data and system assets.  

A cloud security assessment will help businesses understand how their sensitive data is accessed and shared, which is one of the major benefits of the assessment. Some of the other important benefits of the cloud security risk assessment include but are not limited to:  

Cloud risk assessment helps remain compliant

The first and foremost thing organizations must remember about cloud risk assessment is that it helps them stay and remain compliant with data security laws, regulations, and standards. For example, the HIPAA Security Rule demands “conducting an accurate and thorough assessment of the potential risks and vulnerabilities to the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of ePHI held by the covered entity.” The risk assessment under the HIPAA Security Rule is critical to HIPAA compliance since it creates the foundation for the entity’s activities. The same goes for other laws, regulations, and standards, including PCI DSS, GLBA, and CCPA.  

Although these regulations and standards require organizations to conduct a security risk assessment, they don’t prescribe any specific risk assessment approach or methodology. Some of the most frequently used ones are prescribed by the NIST SP 800-30 Guide for Conducting Risk Assessment as of September 2012, and ISO 27005:2022 Information Security, Cybersecurity and Privacy Protection Guidance on managing information security risks. It is also worth mentioning that these risk assessment methodologies were introduced long before the massive adoption of hybrid and multi-cloud environments which means they may fall short in addressing how the risk to cloud-based environments should be assessed.  

Cloud risk assessment helps detect cloud misconfigurations

Cloud Security risk assessment helps detect and reduce the risks of cloud misconfigurations that lead to non-compliance and data breaches. By conducting a thorough assessment of network controls, access controls, data stores, and workloads, organizations can identify areas of weakness, such as improper access controls, insecure configurations, or inadequate encryption settings. These assessments help organizations understand the specific risks associated with their cloud deployments and prioritize remediation efforts accordingly. Additionally, cloud risk assessments enable organizations to implement proactive measures to mitigate risks, such as implementing security best practices, establishing robust access controls, and deploying automated monitoring and alerting systems. By addressing vulnerabilities before they are exploited, organizations can significantly reduce the likelihood of cloud misconfigurations and enhance the overall security posture of their cloud environments.

Cloud risk assessment helps address insider threats

Cloud risk assessment plays a vital role in addressing insider threats by identifying potential vulnerabilities that malicious insiders can exploit. Through comprehensive risk assessment, organizations can evaluate factors such as access controls, user permissions, and data encryption mechanisms. These evaluations, in turn, help determine the effectiveness of their security measures in mitigating insider threats. By identifying gaps in security controls and implementing corrective measures, such as strengthening access controls, implementing user monitoring systems, and conducting regular security training for employees, organizations can reduce the likelihood of insider threats. Additionally, risk assessment enables organizations to continuously monitor and adapt their security posture to evolving threats and changes in the cloud environment, thereby enhancing their ability to detect and respond to insider threats effectively.

Cloud risk assessment helps address data loss

Cloud risk assessment helps address data loss in the cloud by identifying vulnerabilities in storage, backup, and access controls. It evaluates encryption protocols, data management practices, and backup strategies to ensure data resilience. By identifying weaknesses, organizations can prioritize remediation efforts, improve data protection measures and reduce the risk of data loss. Additionally, continuous monitoring ensures ongoing resilience against evolving threats.

Cloud risk assessment aids in addressing network and user access controls

Cloud risk assessment aids in addressing network and user access controls by evaluating the effectiveness of existing measures and identifying potential vulnerabilities. Through this assessment, organizations can identify weaknesses in network architecture, such as insecure configurations or inadequate segmentation, that may allow unauthorized access to cloud resources. Additionally, it assesses user access controls, including authentication mechanisms, role-based access policies, and privilege management systems, to ensure that only authorized users can access sensitive data and resources. By identifying gaps in access controls, organizations can implement measures to strengthen authentication protocols, enforce least privilege principles, and monitor user activities to detect and mitigate unauthorized access attempts. Regular risk assessments enable organizations to continuously evaluate and improve their network and user access controls, enhancing the security of their cloud environments against unauthorized access and insider threats.

Cloud Security Risk Assessment Checklist

Before conducting a risk assessment of your cloud, you will need to gather all of the relevant information about the cloud environment, understand the shared responsibility model, and your vendors’ risk assessment guides. This includes information about your:

• cloud provider(s);
• any third-party vendors you are using
• and your current security solutions and configurations.

With this information in mind, you may proceed with the steps for a complete cloud risk assessment checklist:

Understand shared responsibility in the cloud

Cloud deployments can be categorized as Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), or Software as a Service (SaaS). Depending upon the applicable cloud service model, the level of responsibility over the solutions' security controls shifts between the CSP and the customer. In a traditional on-premises model, the customer is responsible for the whole stack. When moving to the cloud, all physical security responsibilities transfer to the CSP. Depending on the cloud service model for your organization, additional responsibilities shift over to the CSP. However, in most service models, your organization remains responsible for the devices used to access the cloud, network connectivity, your accounts and identities, and your data.  

Identify Your Assets

Identifying all of the assets that are stored in your cloud environment is critical for a thorough cloud risk assessment. The process is often referred to as cloud asset inventory and involves creating an inventory of all resources and data stored in the cloud environment, including virtual machines, databases, storage buckets, and applications. Specifying regions, and services you want to include is also necessary.  

The main distinctive feature (aka challenge) when identifying your cloud assets is the dynamic nature of the cloud environment. Resources can be provisioned, modified, or decommissioned rapidly, and businesses tend to use multi-cloud and hybrid environments. These challenges create a demand for special tools to help gain real-time visibility and identify cloud assets.  

The leaders of the cloud market - AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud - offer management tools to identify cloud asset discovery and keep control over your cloud assets. It’s crucial to review the documentation provided by each cloud service provider to stay up-to-date on the newest information. Data classification and tagging processes help by establishing what the asset is, where it is, and how valuable it is to the organization.  

Classify cloud-based data

Regardless of whether data is processed or stored in on-premises systems or in the cloud, data classification serves as a starting point for determining the appropriate level of controls for the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of data based on risk to the organization. The data classification process involves identifying the types of data that are being processed and stored in an information system and determining the sensitivity of the data and the likely impact should the data face compromise, loss, or misuse.  

For example, confidentiality should be treated with a higher standard of care than data consumed by the general public. Each data classification level should be associated with a recommended baseline set of security controls that help protect against vulnerabilities, threats, and risks commensurate with the designated protection level.

Identify threats and vulnerabilities

The next step is to identify the potential threats that could target your sensitive data. This includes both external threats such as hackers, who often target popular SaaS applications like Microsoft 365 or Google Workforce and internal threats like malicious insiders. The vulnerabilities to cloud-based data depend on many factors: the SaaS application, the data itself, or the organization's unique environment. Some of the common threats to cloud-based data and applications include brute-force attacks, data loss and destruction, IP theft, app vulnerability exploits, system failure, phishing, ransomware, shared infrastructure vulnerabilities, etc.  

Understanding your threats and vulnerabilities helps determine how easy (or difficult) it is for external threat actors to access your information.  

Evaluate risk

After identifying the potential threats that could target your sensitive data, you need to evaluate the risks associated with each one. This includes evaluating the threat criticality (low, medium, or high), estimating the likelihood of a threat occurring as well as the impact it could have on your business. More about these read in our guide How to Conduct a Risk Assessment.  

When evaluating your risks, assess the security measures implemented by your cloud service provider, including encryption protocols, and access controls.

Implement Controls

Once all the risks associated with each threat are evaluated, it is necessary to implement controls to mitigate these risks. This encompasses technical safeguards such as firewalls, encryption, or proper identity access management, alongside non-technical measures like staff training and incident response strategies. By adhering to these steps, you can conduct a comprehensive evaluation of your cloud security, pinpointing any risks, vulnerabilities, and security hurdles. Subsequently, you can initiate actions to rectify them, guaranteeing the appropriate safeguarding of your data.

Assessing Risk to Your Cloud-Based Data with Planet 9

Planet 9 employs seasoned professionals with years of experience in performing security risk assessments both in on-premises and cloud environments. We use industry-standard frameworks, such as NIST or ISO, to develop and execute a repeatable risk assessment management process. A typical approach consists of the following steps:

• Conduct a discovery to understand the client’s people, processes, and technologies.
• Perform an analysis to identify all potential threats and vulnerabilities that may lead to security risks.
• Estimate threats’ likelihood (probability) and impact.
• Identify existing controls that the organization has implemented to mitigate the risks.
• Identify residual risks and remaining control gaps.
• Prioritize the severity of the identified risks.
• Provide recommendations and approaches for addressing identified risks.
• Develop a remediation plan for mitigating the identified risks.
• Assist the client on executing the remediation plan.

Contact Planet 9 to learn more about the cloud risk assessment.