As organizations strive to modernize their IT ecosystems and adopt new technologies, they face expanded attack surfaces and new complexities. In a recent webinar, Building a Faster, Simpler, and More Secure Hybrid Cloud Environment, F5, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Intel experts discussed securing diverse cloud environments, applications, and APIs. From bad bots, fraud, and credential stuffing to whatever the next threat will be, they agree that security should be front and center for IT teams, followed by optimizing performance in a close second. Read on for critical takeaways about hybrid cloud security and performance solutions.
Securing the hybrid cloud with a layered approach
Hybrid cloud environments expand the potential attack surface because of their dynamic boundaries. The increasing threat of sophisticated attacks like ransomware, bots, automated attacks, or others throughout any hybrid cloud ecosystem is enough to keep cybersecurity teams up at night. According to the numbers, the cost of data breaches will rise from $3 trillion annually to more than $5 trillion in 2024.1 Threats are constantly evolving, and security should also be.
To move from static to dynamic security, organizations must assess their entire ecosystem. Achieving robust cyber defenses and compliance requires scrutinizing hybrid cloud infrastructures, including legacy systems, endpoints, data flows, and third-party integrations. For potential weak points and risks, penetration testing to locate vulnerabilities is recommended. Tools from AWS and F5 provide visibility into infrastructure and workloads. This view is an excellent point upon which to build a security strategy. Here are just a few of the F5 solutions that teams can employ:
Organizations must move beyond their reliance on a single security tool as a catch-all defense. A layered security approach combines complementary technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), WAFs, encryption, and more to defend across hybrid environments. Along with collaborative vendor partnerships that integrate performance solutions, this defense-in-depth strategy delivers unified controls with robust security across any digital landscape.
Top security doesn't mean compromising performance
In any organization's hybrid cloud strategy, security remains paramount. However, ensuring optimal application performance and a superior user experience is equally critical. That's why the best IT teams recommend seeking advanced security solutions designed to function at full network speeds.
Vendors like F5 offer comprehensive app and API protection, while AWS Cloud provides scalable infrastructure for diverse workloads. Further, by leveraging these collaborative partnerships, IT teams can harness technology that maximizes performance. Intel's accelerated performance solutions, for instance, significantly boost processing capabilities.
Intel QuickAssist Technology adds a layer of optimization that does the following:
- Offloads compute-intensive workloads to free up capacity
- Accelerates symmetric and asymmetric encryption and lossless compression
- Provides performance comparable to expensive dedicated hardware
Operations teams never want to deal with performance degradation just because they are in the cloud. And with F5 and Intel for AWS, they don't have to.
The importance of shared responsibility
Securing and optimizing your hybrid cloud can be like putting together a jigsaw puzzle in today's evolving digital landscape. Every piece counts, and the final product hinges on everything fitting together. Known as a shared responsibility model, the concept isn't new; it's a longstanding basis of security practices. However, with the growth of hybrid cloud platforms and complex applications, its value is greater than ever. Within this model are clearly defined roles and responsibilities that organizations must follow to ensure that systems, applications, services, and data remain protected up and down the stack—in the cloud and on the cloud.
F5 recognizes the gaps and vulnerabilities that can arise from a hybrid cloud environment and works hand-in-hand with customers to deploy state-of-the-art security to ensure that these systems function optimally and are resilient against threats and unforeseen issues. Learn more about the shared responsibility model here.
Looking Ahead to Simplicity, Speed, and Security for Your Hybrid Cloud Journey
Digital transformation means different things to different companies, depending on where they are at in their cloud journey. For one organization, it's moving an application to the cloud; for another, it could mean moving an application to the cloud and wrapping it in a managed service; and for a third, an entire digital ecosystem infrastructure overhaul is in order.
At F5, nearly every customer does business in the cloud, whether on-premises, in a private data center, or among several other clouds. With the right partners and proven technology, cloud engineers, DevOps, DevSecOps, and security professionals can confidently embrace the promise of hybrid cloud while prioritizing protection and high performance.
To learn more, visit Hybrid and Multi-Cloud Security
Source:
1. Accenture, State of Cybersecurity Resilience, 2021
Related Blog Posts
F5 accelerates and secures AI inference at scale with NVIDIA Cloud Partner reference architecture
F5’s inclusion within the NVIDIA Cloud Partner (NCP) reference architecture enables secure, high-performance AI infrastructure that scales efficiently to support advanced AI workloads.
F5 Silverline Mitigates Record-Breaking DDoS Attacks
Malicious attacks are increasing in scale and complexity, threatening to overwhelm and breach the internal resources of businesses globally. Often, these attacks combine high-volume traffic with stealthy, low-and-slow, application-targeted attack techniques, powered by either automated botnets or human-driven tools.
F5 Silverline: Our Data Centers are your Data Centers
Customers count on F5 Silverline Managed Security Services to secure their digital assets, and in order for us to deliver a highly dependable service at global scale we host our infrastructure in the most reliable and well-connected locations in the world. And when F5 needs reliable and well-connected locations, we turn to Equinix, a leading provider of digital infrastructure.
Volterra and the Power of the Distributed Cloud (Video)
How can organizations fully harness the power of multi-cloud and edge computing? VPs Mark Weiner and James Feger join the DevCentral team for a video discussion on how F5 and Volterra can help.
Phishing Attacks Soar 220% During COVID-19 Peak as Cybercriminal Opportunism Intensifies
David Warburton, author of the F5 Labs 2020 Phishing and Fraud Report, describes how fraudsters are adapting to the pandemic and maps out the trends ahead in this video, with summary comments.
The Internet of (Increasingly Scary) Things
There is a lot of FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) that gets attached to any emerging technology trend, particularly when it involves vast legions of consumers eager to participate. And while it’s easy enough to shrug off the paranoia that bots...