Cloud-Native Security: A Concept Modern Businesses Need to Understand

Many modern businesses use the cloud. It’s not the correct tool for all of them, but many find that it fits their needs perfectly. However, they also need to be mindful of security concerns when using it.

That’s why cloud-native security exists. Cloud-native security plays a crucial role in the modern IT landscape. You may know very little about it if you don’t work in IT, though.

If you have a company that’s either using the cloud or thinking about doing so, you should understand the basics behind the cloud-native security concept. Let’s talk about it in detail now.

What Does “The Cloud” Mean?

First, let’s define the cloud, so we know for certain that you understand what it means. The term “the cloud,” in the IT world, means a network of remote servers. Data centers host them. You can easily access the cloud over the internet.

As a user of the cloud, your business can store data of all kinds there. Your workers can also access different applications. They can even perform computing tasks. Your business can do all of this without having to access any physical software or hardware.

That’s why many companies like the idea behind the cloud. Not having to deal with physical hardware or software appeals in many instances.

If you have workers scattered around the country, or even around the world, then they can use the cloud that you have equipped with all the data and applications they need. Since many individuals like working remotely these days, you can attract some of the world’s top talent by using the cloud. You’re not restricting yourself to only hiring workers in one physical locale.

However, while the cloud might sound great in a lot of ways, you still need to have security for it, just as you would with any kind of asset that your company uses and needs.

What Does Cloud-Native Security Mean?

This brings us to the cloud-native security concept. It means a kind of integrated security strategy that businesses developed for this particular working model. It protects your cloud architecture. That includes things like storage containers, platforms, and applications.

Cloud-native security also protects all the data that your company stored within this digital environment. It uses technologies and practices that a security entity designed specifically for a cloud-based environment.

In other words, the term “cloud-native security” acts as kind of a catchall for any of a number of interrelated security technologies specifically designed to protect companies and individuals who use the cloud. Since your business will likely have all kinds of highly sensitive data in the cloud, these security measures must remain in place at all times.

If you don’t have cloud-native security in place, that can open you up to all kinds of issues, like hacker attacks.

Why It Makes Sense to Implement Cloud-Native Security for Businesses

Your business probably chose a kind of cloud to use. Maybe it selected a public cloud, a private one, or a hybrid model. No matter which of the three your business elected to use, though, cloud-native security will work for it, assuming you set it up in such a way that it offers blanket protection for all the apps and data you have in the cloud.

You need to have impenetrable security for all of your cloud-based data and assets. If you have a security setup that works only for on-premises solutions, that’s no good to you. That’s because security that you designed to protect your on-premises solutions won’t adequately protect a cloud-based environment.

Cloud-native security specifically addresses cloud-based threats. At the same time, it helps you to stay in compliance with any rules or regulations that you must follow in your particular niche or industry.

How Will Setting Up Cloud-Native Security Help Your Company?

You might not feel entirely clear yet on how setting up cloud-native security will help your company. You can think of it in this way.

Say that you’re trying to hire some new workers. You have some openings, and you feel like, if you hire some skilled employees, you can further promote your company’s goals.

However, you can’t attract the best talent, especially in the area of IT, if they see that you don’t have the most up-to-date security measures. Individuals who you could potentially hire to handle your IT tasks will know about cloud-native security. They will want you to have it in place, and they won’t feel you’re running a serious company unless you have it.

It’s the same with new clients or customers you’d hope to attract. They will also want to know that you have the very best security measures in place if you use the cloud. That’s because these clients or customers will very likely give you their sensitive data.

Whether you sell a physical product or some kind of service, you will probably collect information from your clients or customers like their full names, email addresses, physical addresses, credit card numbers, etc. Presumably, you will also keep a full record of what they buy from you so that you can do targeted marketing.

What would happen if your company didn’t have the most robust online security measures? It follows that hackers could get all of that sensitive data about your customers.

That kind of a breach would damage your relationships with your customers, and it might even cause worse damage than that. Your customers might band together and sue you via a class action lawsuit. If they establish that you didn’t have the most up-to-date security measures in place, and you surrendered client data to hackers for that reason, then a jury might find you legally liable.

If you think about cloud-native security as necessary in the modern era, then your company should have no problem setting it up and paying for it. When your workers and potential customers know that you have it in place, that should bolster your reputation as a modern company.