How one multi-cloud-based business manages security controls

AppsFlyer processes 80 terabytes of data a day across multiple cloud hosting services. It scales its security needs by keeping a close eye on identity governance and access controls.

Among the biggest cybersecurity challenges CISOs are facing is how to maintain data protection and privacy when their organizations shift workloads to the cloud. In particular, how can they manage security controls in a cloud-only environment?

This has become more important as organizations migrate to cloud services because of the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting shift to a work-from-home model. As research firm International Data Corp. (IDC) notes in an October 2020 report, the pandemic “has largely proven to be an accelerator of cloud adoption and extension and will continue to drive a faster conversion to cloud-centric IT.”

IDC forecasts that worldwide spending on cloud services, the hardware and software components underpinning cloud services, and the professional and managed services opportunities around cloud services will surpass $1 trillion in 2024, while sustaining a double-digit compound annual growth rate of 16%.

The cloud in all its permutations will play ever greater, and even dominant, roles across the IT industry for the foreseeable future, says Richard Villars, group vice president, worldwide research at IDC. By the end of 2021, most enterprises will put a mechanism in place to accelerate their shift to cloud-centric digital infrastructure and application services, he says.

Given the cloud’s growing importance, companies need to figure out how to effectively maintain a high level of security in this changing environment.