Book Image

Cloud Auditing Best Practices

By : Shinesa Cambric, Michael Ratemo
5 (1)
Book Image

Cloud Auditing Best Practices

5 (1)
By: Shinesa Cambric, Michael Ratemo

Overview of this book

As more and more companies are moving to cloud and multi-cloud environments, being able to assess the compliance of these environments properly is becoming more important. But in this fast-moving domain, getting the most up-to-date information is a challenge—so where do you turn? Cloud Auditing Best Practices has all the information you’ll need. With an explanation of the fundamental concepts and hands-on walk-throughs of the three big cloud players, this book will get you up to speed with cloud auditing before you know it. After a quick introduction to cloud architecture and an understanding of the importance of performing cloud control assessments, you’ll quickly get to grips with navigating AWS, Azure, and GCP cloud environments. As you explore the vital role an IT auditor plays in any company’s network, you'll learn how to successfully build cloud IT auditing programs, including using standard tools such as Terraform, Azure Automation, AWS Policy Sentry, and many more. You’ll also get plenty of tips and tricks for preparing an effective and advanced audit and understanding how to monitor and assess cloud environments using standard tools. By the end of this book, you will be able to confidently apply and assess security controls for AWS, Azure, and GCP, allowing you to independently and effectively confirm compliance in the cloud.
Table of Contents (16 chapters)
1
Part 1: The Basics of Cloud Architecture and Navigating – Understanding Enterprise Cloud Auditing Essentials
4
Part 2: Cloud Security and IT Controls
8
Part 3: Executing an Effective Enterprise Cloud Audit Plan

Leveraging policy and compliance automation

Cloud deployments are very dynamic for organizations to rely on manual resources. Given the complexity and scale of the platforms on the cloud, it can be a challenge for the teams to manually apply or validate security and compliance policies. As a result, there are numerous opportunities for the IT auditor to leverage automation to assess and enforce policy and compliance in the cloud. Cloud automation is the use of automated tools and processes to execute workflows in a cloud environment that would otherwise have to be performed manually.

One tool an IT auditor can utilize to monitor changes in a cloud customer’s cloud is Terraform Enterprise. Terraform Enterprise has a product named Sentinel. Sentinel has the functionality to ensure an organization’s code against infrastructure aligns with specific policies. This idea is called Compliance as Code or Policy as Code.

With Compliance as Code, controls and policies are...