With the increase in online orders due to the pandemic, Network and IT resource scalability has been critical to XXXXXXX customers retail business. With varying customer demand patterns, using the Cloud based platform for infrastructure benefited them immensely. On-Demand provisioning of various resources was a key factor in cloud adoption and selecting Amazon AWS as the platform of choice.

However, a recent discovery of a successful low level hack on the Cloud Servers brought to light new challenges and security threats for the Client. The organization had clearly failed to secure Cloud based services and ensure that risks associated with Cloud computing had been managed appropriately. Discovery of the attack during an audit triggered the need for professional expertise in evaluating and enforcing better cloud security.

NobleProg Cloud security experts, identified three key cloud security areas to focus on:

• Policy Based Identify and Authentication.
• Zero trust cloud network security controls.
• Use of Next-generation Web Application firewall to secure all Web Applications.

Working with the IT Teams and business, we identified clear groups and roles for cloud resources access and management, providing the minimal access privileges needed for groups to carry out activities. A full review of security policies was done to ensure proper IAM hygiene like passwords policies and others were in place. Two factor authentication was implemented for any administrative access.

Using Virtual Private Clouds in AWS, micro segments were designed to isolate business critical apps from other workloads. Subnets were planned to add another layer of isolation. Implementation of a Next generation firewall in the Cloud was done to protect all web application servers from threats.

During the engagement as part of following good cloud security hygiene, we discovered misconfigured storage buckets, which were accidently exposing some data. Also Web application firewalls had to be repositioned to be closer to the MicroServices which were running the applications. These were minor setbacks and were an important lesson learnt. Several other controls were proposed for ensure better cloud security, such as Threat intelligence solutions and addition data security controls, but considering business priorities and IT readiness, were marked for future roadmap.

In this engagement Noble prog successfully evaluated cloud security risks for a retail customer and using our expertise delivered cloud security implementation. Key deliverables were:

• Reduced risk from administrative accounts being compromised.
• Limiting risk from Application threats.
• Secure cloud design, limiting damages from a compromise.
• A clear roadmap of controls and implementation priorities.
• Ensuring that business can continue to leverage Cloud capabilities while minimizing risks.