Cloud Identity Security: Protecting Your Digital Identities

What is Cloud Identity Security?

Cloud identity security is a critical practice focused on safeguarding digital identities and the sensitive cloud infrastructure and data they control. It involves implementing robust identity and access control mechanisms to regulate who, or what, can access cloud resources. This includes human users like developers, service accounts, application identities, and various other entities interacting with cloud services. The goal is to prevent unauthorized access and misuse, thereby protecting the organization from cyber threats.

The Shift from Traditional to Cloud Identity Management

Historically, identity security was managed on-premises. Identities originated from a single, controllable source managed by in-house servers and software. However, the cost, lack of flexibility, and scalability challenges of self-hosted on-premises servers led to an increase in cloud adoption. Consequently, organizations began implementing federated identities to allow numerous identities—both human and machine—to easily interact with a multi-cloud environment.

Organizations transitioned from traditional directory services such as Microsoft Active Directory (AD) to identity management services better suited for the cloud’s dynamic nature, like Microsoft Entra ID. These services facilitated scalable, cross-domain identity management and enabled simple integration with IaaS, SaaS, and PaaS platforms. They also allowed organizations to implement features like single sign-on (SSO).

However, the cloud’s dynamic nature, which enables developers to rapidly deploy and decommission resources, introduces risks related to misconfigured access controls. A recent example is the ransomware attack that targeted cybersecurity firm Fortinet. This incident involved the theft of a significant amount of data from Fortinet’s S3 bucket and the public release of the instance’s credentials, granting other hackers access to the data.

Common Identity Security Risks in the Cloud

Despite the advantages of cloud-native solutions, cloud identity protection is not without its risks, as the Fortinet example demonstrates. These risks can make organizations vulnerable to cyber threats and business disruptions should their cloud environment be breached. Some common identity security risks include:

• Over-permissioning: Granting users or services more permissions than necessary for their tasks. This often leads to privilege escalation vulnerabilities, which enlarges the attack surface and the potential impact of a breach.
• Identity sprawl: This involves individuals creating multiple unsynchronized accounts across different cloud services. Since it can be difficult to keep track of these accounts, identity sprawl makes it challenging to monitor who is doing what within the cloud environment.
• Shadow assets and access: The proliferation of unknown, unauthorized, and sometimes overly-permissive cloud identities and assets. Some organizations have found that a significant number of their admin accounts were over-permissioned and inherited, with capabilities that could allow for the deletion of entire cloud environments.
• Weak authentication: This often results from relying solely on single authentication methods (e.g., weak or reused passwords). This leaves organizations vulnerable to credential theft and brute force attacks.

Identity Security vs. IAM

Identity security is a broad practice focused on protecting all aspects of digital identities, including access control, identity lifecycle management, threat detection, and regulatory compliance. Its goal is to secure user access to cloud resources while identifying and addressing identity-based threats.

Identity and access management (IAM) is a narrower subset of identity security that deals specifically with managing who has what access. IAM provides the tools for authentication, authorization, and access control, using methods like role-based access control (RBAC) and multi-factor authentication (MFA). While IAM is an essential element of identity security, it does not encompass the full scope of identity-related protections.

Identity Security vs. Zero Trust

Identity security focuses on securing user identities and overseeing their access to cloud resources, and encompasses practices like access management and threat detection.

Zero Trust is a broader security model that trusts no party by default, inside or outside of the network. It constantly verifies every user, device, and access attempt, irrespective of location. Zero Trust extends security measures to every cloud and network element, ensuring constant validation and protection against potential breaches. While identity security is essential to Zero Trust, Zero Trust secures devices, workloads, and networks.

How Cloud Identity Security Works

Cloud identity security involves several stages to secure and maintain identity-based systems:

1. Discovery and Mapping:
   • Action: Scan the cloud environment to identify all human and non-human identities (e.g., service accounts, applications).
   • Steps: Map the relationships between identities and the cloud resources accessed by the identities; Create a comprehensive inventory of access permissions, roles, and entitlements; Identify orphaned accounts or unmanaged identities.
2. Analysis and Risk Assessment:
   • Action: Analyse the risk associated with each identity, with a focus on access scope and permissions.
   • Steps: Evaluate effective permissions, considering the complex inheritance of access rights; Identify excessive or unused permissions that may potentially increase the attack surface; Detect any identities lacking basic security measures, such as missing multi-factor authentication (MFA); Assess the overall risk level by considering the sensitivity of the accessed resources.
3. Policy Creation and Enforcement:
   • Action: Create and implement access control policies, ensuring a secure identity system.
   • Steps: Develop least-privilege access policies based on the risk assessments that have been completed; Set up an appropriate role-based access control (RBAC) to align all relevant roles with their job functions; Implement conditional access policies, that factor in certain elements, such as location and device health; Mandate multi-factor authentication (MFA) for every account, especially those with administrative or privileged access.
4. Continuous Monitoring and Detection:
   • Action: Continuously monitor activities related to user identity to identify any suspicious behavior or potential risks.
   • Steps: Implement real-time monitoring to record every login attempt, as well as all access patterns and privilege changes; Set up alerts for any suspicious activity. For example, login attempts from unknown locations or policy violations should trigger an alert; Check regularly for exposed secrets or credentials in order to detect compromised identities; Monitor non-human identities (e.g., service accounts, serverless functions) to detect any unusual activity.
5. Threat Analysis and Response:
   • Action: Use advanced analytics to identify and respond to any identity-based threats.
   • Steps: Correlate any identity risks with other security data (e.g., vulnerabilities, misconfigurations) to obtain a more holistic view of the security measures; Conduct any necessary attack path analyses to identify the potential routes that attackers could take in order to access sensitive data or privileged accounts; Detect the potential lateral movement paths that attackers could use to escalate access. Respond to any threats by adjusting access controls, isolating compromised identities, or rotating credentials.
6. Remediation and Optimization:
   • Action: Remediate identity risks and optimize the current access controls in order to prevent future incidents.
   • Steps: Provide step-by-step remediation to reduce any over-permissioned identities; Revoke any unused or unnecessary access rights that may exist; Rotate all exposed credentials and secrets to prevent unauthorized access; Implement the use of just-in-time (JIT) access for privileged accounts to limit the time for which elevated privileges can be granted.
7. Reporting and Compliance:
   • Action: Ensure that identity security practices align with all regulatory standards and are auditable.
   • Steps: Generate any detailed reports on the organization’s identity security posture; Track all changes in permissions, access patterns, as well as improvements over time; Ensure total compliance with relevant standards and regulations (e.g., GDPR, HIPAA, PCI DSS); Provide auditable logs of all identity-related activities and policy changes for all relevant auditing and reporting purposes.
8. Continuous Improvement:
   • Action: Regularly review and constantly improve identity security measures in order to adapt to any new and emergent threats.
   • Steps: Periodically review and update identity policies to reflect any changes in the cloud environment; Conduct a series of security assessments and penetration tests to detect any gaps in the existing identity security; Stay completely informed on any new identity-based attack vectors and always adjust security strategies accordingly; Continuously educate all users on the best practices for how to best secure their cloud identities and in the process reduce risk.

Cloud Identity Security and Compliance

Cloud identity security plays a vital role in ensuring compliance with different regulatory standards and industry frameworks, particularly those focused on the protection of any sensitive data. Identity security is essential for managing access and therefore keeping cloud environments more secure. There are several ways that cloud identity security is directly intertwined with the maintenance of compliance:

1. Regulatory Standards: Many regulations require stringent identity security measures to protect all sensitive data in a cloud environment. Key examples include:

   • GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) requires organizations to safeguard all personally identifiable data, including managing all access to this data via secure identity management practices. Making certain that only authorized users have access to sensitive personal data is essential for GDPR compliance.
   • HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) mandates that all healthcare organizations and their partners secure any electronic protected health information (ePHI) through mechanisms such as role-based access controls and strong authentication methods to ensure that only authorized personnel can access all patient information.
   • PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) outlines very specific access control measures to secure all cardholder data. This includes enforcing least-privilege access, ensuring every individual uses a unique ID, and ensuring that all authentication mechanisms are managed securely.
   • SOX (Sarbanes-Oxley Act) sets requirements for financial institutions to protect against unauthorized access and fraud by enforcing solid identity security controls, including monitoring and auditing privileged accounts.

2. IAM Compliance Controls: Effective identity management systems are vital for meeting compliance mandates. Some specific identity security measures are required to maintain compliance. These include:

   • Access control: Compliance standards regularly mandate the enforcement of a least-privilege approach, as well as ensuring that every user only has access to specific systems and data required for their role/function. This practice limits exposure to sensitive information, reducing the attack surface for potential threats.
   • Multi-factor authentication (MFA): MFA is often required in compliance standards to verify the identity of users accessing sensitive resources. This reduces the risk of unauthorized access and helps to prevent data breaches.
   • Audit trails: Regulations often require organizations to keep detailed audit logs of any identity-related activities. This includes all logins, all failed attempts, any privilege escalations, as well as any modifications to user access. These audit trails can then enable both monitoring and reporting, which is vital for security operations as well as being imperative for demonstrating compliance during regular audits.

3. Compliance Frameworks: Several compliance frameworks guide organizations on securing their cloud identity systems:

   • NIST Cybersecurity Framework provides guidelines on how to secure identities, including access control, authentication, and identity management, to support compliance.
   • ISO/IEC 27001 enforces identity security as a part of the overall information security management systems (ISMS), especially in areas such as access control and cryptographic controls.
   • CIS Controls emphasize identity and access management as a key security control mechanism. CIS Control 5 (account management), in particular, ensures that all user access and associated entitlements are carefully controlled and audited for all compliance standards.

4. Cloud Provider Shared Responsibility Model: Compliance with identity security practices in cloud environments falls under a shared responsibility model. Both cloud service provider (CSP) and customer have various roles to play:

   • Cloud provider’s responsibility: The CSP is typically responsible for securing the underlying infrastructure and platform. This includes ensuring that the offered identity services (e.g., AWS IAM or Azure Active Directory) meet all applicable security standards.
   • Customer’s responsibility: The customer is responsible for configuring and managing all identities securely within their cloud environment. This covers setting up IAM roles, defining policies, ensuring MFA is enforced, and auditing every activity related to identity.

5. Third-Party Assessments and Certifications: Many organizations rely on third-party assessments and certifications to demonstrate their compliance with identity security practices in the cloud. Some examples include:

   • SOC 2 ensures that the existing identity security controls meet the required standards for security, confidentiality, and privacy in the cloud environment.
   • ISO 27001 certification demonstrates that an organization has implemented strong identity security controls that are aligned with international standards.

Cloud identity security is absolutely essential for achieving and then subsequently maintaining complete compliance with a broad range of regulations and standards. Implementing potent identity security practices can help organizations avoid the dire consequences of non-compliance, as well as ensuring their cloud environments meet every required security standard. Cloud identity security not only involves protecting sensitive data, but also demonstrating accountability and consistent due diligence in the safeguarding of all access to cloud resources, in accordance with the law.