If your organization is considering migrating your network infrastructure and data to the cloud, it is important to ensure that proper network security is in place during and after the migration process.
In most cases, the network security services and practices built for on-premise network infrastructure will not transfer well to the cloud. Migrating to the cloud typically requires different network security services and solutions to secure your new network environment.
Additionally, migrating the network infrastructure can make the data involved more sensitive and vulnerable to malicious actors.
It is important to secure the data while in its most vulnerable state to avoid cyberattacks and data breaches that can ruin the migration process and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to repair the network.
Coeo understands how important network security is and has helped thousands of organizations improve their network security and migrate their network infrastructure to the cloud.
By the end of this article, you will understand the challenges for network security during the cloud migration process, best practices to avoid these challenges, and whether cloud migration is a good decision for your organization.
The challenges of securing the network during cloud migration
During and after the cloud migration process, it can be difficult to ensure your network infrastructure and data are secure.
Understanding the challenges of securing your network during cloud migration can help your organization prepare for these challenges when migrating to the cloud. Some of these challenges include:
Sensitive data and network infrastructure exposure
Data in transit and at rest during cloud migration is oftentimes vulnerable to malicious attacks. Since the network infrastructure is being moved, the network security is not able to fully secure the data and infrastructure.
Compliance concerns
It is important that your organization ensures its network security protects your data and network infrastructure even during the cloud migration process to avoid being non-compliant.
If you have compliance requirements placed on your organization such as HIPAA, non-compliance with these rules and regulations can cause legal ramifications.
For this reason, it is important to ensure your network and data are secure during the cloud migration process.
Network downtime
System outages and network downtime can result if your organization has poor security during the cloud migration process.
For this reason, it is important to conduct risk assessments and monitor in real-time during the cloud migration process. This will help avoid poor security and network downtime.
Lack of visibility and control
Data movement during the cloud migration process can lead to a lack of visibility and control over the data and network security. With data moving from one place to the next, securing the network and data can be difficult.
Real-time monitoring tools and services can help provide reliable security over the network and data during the cloud migration process.
If you would like to speak with our team to learn more about migrating to the cloud or ask any questions you may have you can schedule an appointment.
Best practices to avoid the challenges of network security during cloud migration
Now you understand some of the challenges of securing your network during and after the cloud migration process. However, it is also important to understand these best practices to avoid challenges during your migration process. These best practices include:
Establish security standards and baselines
One of the most important best practices is to develop baseline security standards.
It is important to include cloud control plane configuration and cloud workload vulnerability posture as part of these standards to improve security during the cloud migration process.
Additionally, it is important to establish DevOps and cloud infrastructure privileges for your IT team and no one else to avoid any malicious access to network infrastructure.
Require multifactor authentication for administrative access
Administrative access to the network infrastructure should only be shared with executives who are allowed to make changes and the IT team that manages and monitors the infrastructure.
Any other access outside of these groups can result in vulnerabilities if access is given to the wrong user.
For users with administrative access, it is important to require multifactor authentication when logging in.
Multifactor authentication requires a user to authenticate their device in two or more ways which can include SMS or phone call verification, PIN code, or email verification confirming that the end user logging into the network is verified and who they say they are.
Requiring multi-factor authentication will help avoid cyberattacks and data breaches because of administrative accounts being attacked.
Is cloud migration a good decision for your organization?
Now you understand the challenges of securing your network during cloud migration and the best practices to avoid these challenges. However, it is also important to understand whether cloud migration is the right decision for your organization.
If your organization is dealing with poor network and application performance, migrating data storage and network infrastructure to the cloud may be a good decision to improve overall reliability and performance.
Cloud migration is also a good decision if your employees and network data are growing and your current network services and applications are unable to keep up. Migrating to the cloud may be a good decision to improve scalability for your growing organization.
Additionally, if your organization has remote workers who have difficulty accessing your network and applications, migrating to the cloud can help improve accessibility.
However, the cloud is a public platform that can be accessed by any user with an internet connection. Because of this, if your organization does not have the proper network security, migrating to the cloud may not be a good idea.
It is important to secure your network using the best practices mentioned earlier and with solutions such as SASE to ensure your network infrastructure and applications are secure during and after the cloud migration process.
Determining if cloud migration is the right decision for your organization
Now you understand the challenges of securing your network during and after cloud migration, the best practices to avoid these challenges, and whether cloud migration is the right decision for your organization.
This will help you determine whether your organization should migrate its network infrastructure and data to the cloud.
No organization can afford to have a slow and poor-performing network. This can lead to poor productivity and efficiency if your employees rely on network connectivity to perform daily work tasks.
However, if your organization is looking to migrate to the cloud to improve network performance and reliability, it is important that you understand the challenges of securing your network during the migration process and best practices to avoid these challenges.
Understanding the challenges and best practices to solve and avoid them will help you secure your network if your organization decides to migrate to the cloud.
Coeo understands how important network security is and has helped thousands of organizations migrate their network infrastructure to the cloud and improve network security.
We want you to understand the challenges of securing your network during the cloud migration process and best practices to avoid these challenges so your organization can be better prepared if these challenges arise during your migration.
If you would like to speak with our team to learn more about migrating to the cloud or ask any questions you may have you can schedule an appointment.
Now that you understand the challenges of securing the network during cloud migration and the best practices to avoid them, read this article to understand the factors that affect the cost of cloud migration:
