While early adoption of the cloud was driven largely by a desire to reduce capital expenses and management overhead, organizations are now moving to the cloud for strategic purposes. Users can be more productive because they have the flexibility to access cloud resources, collaborate with co-workers, and serve customers from any device and location. The cloud can reduce or even eliminate disruption caused by downtime with onsite systems.
However, few organizations move everything to the cloud, nor should they. Certain applications and services are typically kept on-premises, creating a hybrid environment. The problem is, workloads in the cloud aren’t secure by default. You need to implement security controls in two environments.
That’s because cloud providers operate on a shared responsibility model in which the provider is responsible for protecting their core infrastructure and the customer is responsible for protecting their data and satisfying regulatory compliance requirements. Major public cloud providers such as AWS and Microsoft Azure make this crystal clear in their contracts.
Of course, cloud systems aren’t the same as on-premises systems, so traditional security controls won’t necessarily work properly, if at all, in both environments. Certain tools have been designed for on-premises environments and won’t support cloud technology, and vice versa. For example, some on-premises security controls are unable to dynamically scale up and down with cloud services, which can result in gaps and blind spots.
If that’s the case, you could end up needing separate security tools and services for each environment. That means you’ll have multiple tools and services to purchase and maintain, which translates to higher costs and management overhead. You’ll also have multiple tools to learn and manage, increasing the risk that security policies aren’t applied consistently.
Ultimately, you need an overarching management strategy that applies to both on-premises and cloud platforms. You should look for a security solution that enforces your security policies in the cloud and on-premises, and allows you to monitor, manage and generate reports for both environments.
WatchGuard Firebox Cloud was built to extend your security perimeter from on-premises servers to the cloud, where more and more sensitive data is being hosted. Firebox Cloud uses Firebox Unified Threat Management (UTM) to protect your on-premises infrastructure and data and virtual private cloud environments from a wide range of attacks. Firebox UTM comes with the WatchGuard Dimension network security visibility solution, which provides big data visibility and reporting tools that you can use to improve your security policies in all environments.
Designed to run in AWS and Microsoft Azure public clouds, WatchGuard Firebox Cloud offers a simple user interface that automatically removes components that aren’t needed for the cloud environment you’ve chosen. Firebox Cloud also enables WatchGuard-to-WatchGuard VPN tunnels that make it easy to establish secure connections.
You can waste a lot of time and money deploying and managing different security tools and services in different environments. But if you try to run the same legacy tools and services in the cloud, you’ll increase the risk of a data breach. Let us show you how WatchGuard Firebox Cloud protects data on-premises and in the cloud, simplifies management, and provides visibility into both environments.
