SEC524: Cloud Security and Risk Fundamentals teaches you how to properly evaluate cloud providers and perform risk assessment. The course starts with a detailed introduction to the various cloud computing delivery models, ranging from Software as a Service (SaaS) to Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and everything in between. Each of these delivery models represents an entirely separate set of security conditions to consider, especially when coupled with various cloud types, including public, private, and hybrid.
Policy and governance within cloud environments will also be covered, including recommendations for both internal policies and contract provisions. This will lead us to a discussion of compliance and legal concerns. We'll also conduct a mock exercise to review a cloud provider's stated security capabilities and evaluate a simple risk score.
Day one of this two-day course will feature architecture and infrastructure fundamentals, plus a wide range of topics such as patch and configuration management, virtualization security, application security, and change management. As we walk through these fundamental cloud standards, you will learn how to immediately improve the ways in which your own team is deploying assets in the cloud.
Day two starts with an examination of disaster recovery and business continuity planning using cloud models and architecture. Cloud data storage has become common, so we'll discuss how to protect that data, utilizing many tactics including identity and access management protocols. New approaches for data encryption, network encryption, key management, and data lifecycle concerns will be covered in detail. This will be followed by a discussion on intrusion detection and incident response in cloud environments, along with how to best manage these critical security processes and the technologies that support them, given that most controls are managed by the Cloud Service Provider (CSP). We'll wrap up with a final risk assessment for your own projects potentially moving into cloud.
You Will Learn:
- Foundations of cloud policy and contracts
- Cloud risks, including threats and vulnerabilities
- The 14 domains of the Cloud Security Alliance's cloud security research
- Best practices for securing multiple layers of the cloud stack
- How to adapt security architecture, tools, and processes for use in cloud environments
Learning Objectives
- Build a risk-based assessment program of cloud provider controls
- Understand the key areas to focus on in cloud contracts
- Evaluate the various layers of cloud infrastructure
- Adapt a disaster recovery and business continuity plan for cloud environments
- Perform vulnerability assessments in a cloud environment
- Integrate encryption and identity management services in a cloud environment
- Improve your incident response and monitoring capabilities in the cloud