Adopting hybrid clouds requires a comprehensive cybersecurity attitude

This is the second article in the three-part series. The first focused on the importance of the business being ready for the future and how it worked against common barriers to digitalization.. We also discussed how to best manage local infrastructure modernization within a hybrid cloud approach through hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI), enabling modernization that combines the best of the old and the new.

In this article, we examine the challenges that companies need to consider in developing and maintaining a comprehensive security strategy in a hybrid environment.

Security begins before an attack

Without exception, cybersecurity issues remain a high priority and are a real threat to organizations. Recent mega-breaches of home business customer data only serve to underscore the importance of security. Hacked and hacked data from workplace sources, such as mobile phones and Internet of Things (IoT) devices, along with the newly-distributed covid-19 and remote remote team, have changed the threat landscape. In fact, new security requirements, specifically for the protection of identity and access management for remote employees and critical corporate data, It boosted the high growth of HCI in the last year.

Most companies maintain it too much unprotected data. Security breaches have the potential to disrupt all businesses, stopping even the strongest organizations. The increasing adoption of cloud-based models brings a new level of concern for many organizations, especially those who have just started cloud migration.

All of this leads to a conclusion: the need for a comprehensive security strategy for any business that is considering adopting hybrid clouds.

Multilayer security strategy

Changing business environments, additional data usage, and an evolving threat landscape require companies to adopt a new way of looking at security to support stability, innovation, and growth. Businesses need a unified and integrated approach, along with intelligent protection from threats to the workload running in cloud-to-shore environments. Intel and Microsoft are working together to create a chain of trust between software and hardware technology to help protect an organization’s data and applications wherever they live in a hybrid environment.

This multi-layered security strategy integrates Azure Stack HCI software with Intel hardware, where Secured-core servers provide modern security based on the hardware’s root trust as a critical building block. A secured-core program provides additional capabilities that indicate the standard device you should look for when choosing HCI hardware, including firmware sandbox and virtualization-based security (VBS).

Full security requires several angles, including process simplification, advanced protective capability, and a preventive defensive stance. VBS allows you to isolate critical parts of your system, as well as protect it from privileged malware. With Microsoft’s Secured-core servers, all of these capabilities are enabled, enabling IT and security operations teams to focus on where they need the most attention.

As security software layers improve, attackers and malicious people are increasingly moving down the pile in search of new vulnerabilities to exploit. Microsoft continues to invest in mitigation technologies that can better take advantage of the security benefits available from advanced hardware. With that in mind, Intel believes that security should start at the lowest possible layer: within silicon. Intel is helping to establish a chain of trust to protect data at all stages of its life cycle, whether the data is stationary, in flight or in use. This builds on the technological innovation of 3rd generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors with many capabilities, creating a reliable hardware-based runtime environment, encrypting memory and protecting virtual machines and data in use separately, and cryptographic acceleration that delivers excellent performance. allowing extensive encryption in the cloud or edge.

Security professionals need the ability to identify and directly address threats as they arise in the day-to-day operations of the organization. Here, Azure Defender offers the widest coverage of any extended detection and response (XDR) technology on the market today, including users, devices, applications, virtual machines, SQL databases, IoT, etc., all from a single provider.

Azure Defender protects Azure and hybrid environments and ensures that your cloud infrastructure resources are protected from common threats, such as virtual rape machines or storage or attacking SQL injection, or even mitigating threats to containers, a key management service for IoT devices. Azure Defender provides support for these resources directly within the Azure experience and extends support to local and multi-cloud virtual machines and SQL databases using Azure Arc.

Tools to support your mission

Forward-looking leaders agree that the implementation of a unified infrastructure across software and hardware can quickly strengthen an organization’s security stance. However, to get the full benefit of a secure hybrid cloud approach, companies will need tools to assess network security status, protect workloads, raise security alerts and make recommendations to resolve attacks and deal with future threats at high speed. cloud, without implementation.

Azure Security Center provides a unified infrastructure security management system that strengthens the security attitude of your data centers and provides advanced threat protection in all your environments. Organizations can also use Azure cloud services to perform backups and security without having to deploy more on-premises infrastructure.

To provide a basis for the future of companies

Consolidating cloud-delivered and cloud-managed infrastructure allows organizations to modernize investments and look to the future by adopting a true hybrid cloud infrastructure with full security in mind. If your organization is willing to adopt a comprehensive security strategy for a hybrid environment, learn more today about Azure Stack HCI.

Check out the latest Azure Stack HCI HCI systems and new features at Azure.com/HCI. While you’re at it, download the software that Microsoft has made available for a free 60-day trial.

Biography: Talal Alqinawi is a senior marketing director for Microsoft’s Azure marketing products, where his passion for how clouds and AI drive digital transformation informs the company’s cloud marketing and product strategy.