Struggling with Cloud Security? How the Shared Responsibility Model Can Help

Transitioning operational elements over to the cloud can be a big step forward for businesses. It allows them to quickly scale their applications and services while keeping their organization agile in response to shifting market demands.

However, increased cloud adoption can also add a certain level of confusion when it comes to who’s responsible for managing data security. Unfortunately, many businesses assume that when customer data is out of their hands, they’re not liable for whether or not it’s protected. But this is a dangerous assumption to make.

The Shared Responsibility Model (SRM) was introduced to help businesses and their cloud providers draw more precise lines when it comes to security accountabilities across digital environments. Below, we’ll paint a clearer picture of how this model is constructed and how it can help you to strengthen the security posture of your business.

What is the Shared Responsibility Model (SRM)?

There are many reasons that businesses decide to move parts or all of their business operations into the cloud. Not having to configure servers and databases or other infrastructure elements manually can help companies reduce their overhead and lessen the load on their internal teams. However, businesses sometimes forget that offloading “management” of this infrastructure doesn’t mean offloading “accountability” behind the data stored there.

The SRM separates the responsibilities between a cloud service provider (CSP) and the businesses it partners with. It essentially outlines which aspects of security belong to each party and how security measures should be managed and implemented on each side of the relationship.

Understanding “Of the Cloud” vs. “In the Cloud”

The SRM is built around stipulations surrounding two key terms: OF the Cloud and IN the Cloud.

When we talk about requirements OF the Cloud, we’re speaking about what CSPs take ownership over. In this case, you can think of a CSP like a landlord in an apartment complex. They’re responsible for the overall security of the buildings, which includes various safety guardrails, secure gates and entrance protocols, and ensuring key utilities work as they should, like plumbing and electrical systems.

In cloud environments, this means installing and maintaining all networking equipment and addressing any underlying servicing needs to keep environments running smoothly.

As a cloud customer, you’re responsible for the IN the Cloud elements. For example, if you were a tenant in a building and accidentally left your door unlocked, only to have someone steal your personal items, the landlord wouldn’t necessarily be liable.

If you’re storing information in the cloud, you always have some level of responsibility for keeping it secure. While this doesn’t necessarily mean ALL responsibility rests with you to keep it safe, you are still responsible for things like Identity and Access Management (IAM), application security, and network hardening.

The Sliding Scale of Responsibility

Due to the dynamic nature of most cloud environments and their relationships with CSPs, the SRM operates on a sliding scale, with accountabilities shifting to some degree based on the type of working relationship in place. Below are the three common cloud models and how they differ from one another:

• Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): This model leaves CSPs responsible for securing certain foundational cloud components. This includes physical data centers, the servers, the storage hardware, and the virtualization layer. Cloud customers are responsible for everything above that, which includes securing the guest operating system (OS), managing all middleware and runtimes, and protecting application code and the data contained within it.
• Platform as a Service (PaaS): This model extends more responsibilities to the CSP, who takes over managing any operating systems, database systems, or runtime environments. They will also care for any maintenance of the platform itself. For businesses, this can significantly reduce the burden of infrastructure management while allowing them to focus more specifically on managing and securing applications.
• Software as a Service (SaaS): This model is the most hands-off format for cloud users, as it places full infrastructure responsibility over to the CSP. However, this doesn’t mean the security responsibilities completely carry over. Cloud users are still responsible for managing user access, permissions, and security settings at the administrator level.

Why Understanding the SRM is Important

Eliminating Ambiguity

Although many organizations worry that their most significant threat to cloud security is a cyberattacker, miscommunications and misunderstandings in cloud relationships are also a concern.

If CSPs and their customers wrongly assume that the other is handling certain security tasks, it can lead to serious vulnerabilities to customer data. Understanding of the SRM helps to eliminate this ambiguity, giving both parties more transparency when crafting service level agreements (SLAs) and following through with mutual requirements.

Avoiding The Over-Delegation Trap

Many businesses that are new to cloud environments mistake how responsibilities work in the cloud. Because they are paying for a “service,” it can often be assumed that a CSP takes care of everything on behalf of the business.

However, when it comes to cloud security, you don’t want to fall into the trap of over-delegation, especially regarding the administrative security controls your CSP has set up. SRMs help to keep these responsibilities in perspective and keep businesses actively engaged in enforcing data protection policies.

Filling Compliance Gaps

Understanding security compliance standards can sometimes become unclear for businesses entering cloud environments. Although all CSPs have responsibilities when following specific compliance frameworks, the cloud user also has accountabilities in this area.

The SRM outlines the responsibilities that CSPs have regarding infrastructure management, while still holding cloud users accountable for how applications and services are built and run, particularly concerning the storage and access of customer data.

How the Shared Responsibility Model Can Help to Improve Your Security Posture

Clarifies Ownership and Prevents Misunderstandings

Every security task in both your on- and off-premise environments should have specific security ownership clearly established. The SRM makes it much easier to remove any gray areas around who handles which responsibility and allows you to develop consistent governance internally and with CSPs.

Having formal documentation around security preparedness helps to reduce the number of vulnerabilities that can be exploited across connected applications and services, and eliminates assumption-based security planning.

Optimizes Internal Security Resources

Understanding the role that cloud providers play in security infrastructure management makes it easier to keep your security teams focused on the areas that matter most to the business.

This allows you to offload resource-intensive processes like server patching or database management to your CSP, enabling your teams to focus more on securing application coding, designing and implementing new user access policies.

Enforces Data and Identity Centrality

Cloud infrastructure components can always be replaced during a data breach, but your financial stability and business reputation can take irreparable damage during the same incident.

Applying the SRM helps the business place less reliance on a CSP to keep things secure and more time on developing important security principles that can be applied to administrators and other key stakeholders in the organization.

Mandates Security-First Configuration

Most new cloud services offer several configurable settings for cloud security. However, a lack of awareness surrounding cloud configuration vulnerabilities can lead to significant security risks in the future.

The SRM helps the business focus on security-first configurations, prioritizing industry compliance over speed and convenience. Many security frameworks are now built around SRM policies, ensuring that new virtual machine or database configurations meet strict requirements before deployment.

In addition, external penetration testing services are designed to understand the requirements of the SRM while running active vulnerability assessments to see how the business is meeting its associated responsibilities. Leveraging these services can help organizations stress test their security groupings, IAM policies, and data encryption methods to ensure they meet best industry standards.

Elevates Visibility through Audit Logging

Because the SRM typically involves cooperation and transparency between cloud providers and their customers, it helps to keep everyone more aware of the effectiveness of their security hardening.

Security auditing and active monitoring are both essential elements of enforcing SRM policies across both CSP and cloud customers. There are now many cloud-native and third-party tools available for businesses to monitor the overall strength of their cloud security and quickly and effectively respond to emerging security risks.

All of this means more proactive security planning for everyone, helping to reduce the number of security incidents that take place and reducing the risks of data exposure.

Make Cloud Security a Top Priority

Treating the Shared Responsibility Model as a core part of your strategy is critical as your business grows.

Understanding and acknowledging your role in cloud security helps you to avoid making dangerous assumptions regarding accountabilities while getting more actively involved in securing all your digital attack surfaces.