#cloudchat Recap: The Future of Cybersecurity

Twitter was abuzz this past Thursday as we kicked off our first ever #cloudchat, which covered the future of cybersecurity.

Rackspace security experts Jarret Raim and Jason Wolford joined other experts, including GovCloud Network’s Kevin Jackson, Cyxtera’s Chris Steffen and BMC Software’s Allison Cramer, to discuss different facets of security in the cloud.

The topic was spirited, and the participant’s answered five key questions:

1. Who should be involved in planning security strategy?
2. What are some of the innovative cyber security strategies you've encountered?
3. What are some of the security challenges unique to a multi-cloud environment?
4. What are some of the emerging security threats that pose the highest risks?
5. How can infosec leaders keep up with the ever-evolving threatscape?

You can check out our Twitter Moment for some of the highlights of the chat, but several themes emerged from this #cloudchat that are worth noting.

First, there was a consensus that cloud security is something that spans the entire organization. In fact, as Chris Steffen pointed out, “Security is not exclusive - EVER!”

Q1. Obviously, as many stakeholders as possible. Security is not exclusive - EVER! #cloudchat

— Christopher Steffen (@CloudSecChris) July 13, 2017

Racker Jarret Raim agreed, saying that there was a need for legal, HR, PR and internal audit teams to be involved in security strategy. He went on to say that building security throughout an organization is hard and takes more than yearly training — it has to be embedded in the culture.

When it comes to security challenges in multi-cloud environments, a lot of participants pointed out that with more environments, security becomes more complex. Ben Rothke, who works with Nettitude, named one challenge as being “Consistent security controls."

Q3: Consistent security controls. Writing code to support different cloud vendors. Interoperability still issue in the #cloud. #cloudchat

— Ben Rothke (@benrothke) July 13, 2017

For some of the emerging threats, many pointed out to the proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT) devices and how vulnerable they can be to hacking. You may recall how a bunch of connected toasters took down a chunk of the web back in 2016 and understand the potential for this to happen again. Twitter user Tarusha M pointed out “the lack of protocols in place for IoT devices as [manufacturers] care only about product/profit.”

A4: IoT. To be more specific- the lack of protocols in place for IoT devices as mfg care only about product/profit. #cloudchat

— Tarusha M (@TarushaM) July 13, 2017

This led to the following from Racker Jason Wolford, who suggested that home routers should come with a specific “IoT network."

Home routers should start coming standard with a separate "IOT" network to protect users from this #cloudchat

— Jason Wolford (@jasonmwolford) July 13, 2017

If you’re curious about some of the other answers we saw in the chat, be sure to explore our Twitter Moment. Our next #cloudchat will happen on Thursday, July 20 at 11:00 a.m. Central, and we’ll be exploring IT Sprawl vs. Cloud Sprawl — is the cloud simplifying IT? Hope to see you there!

#cloudchat 1: The Future of CyberSecurity