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

Reviewing activity logs

As an auditor, one method that may be used to correlate processes and procedures that mitigate risk is to review activity logs. In cloud environments, these logs may be made up of separate sign-in and activity logs that are capturing activity for user accounts and service or workload identities. The activity may be occurring directly within the portal UI or through API calls by an identity. An important step in ensuring these various sign-ins and activities are being captured is to ensure that auditing has been enabled. This should not be assumed. There may be some auditing features enabled as default; however, this may not be a full set of what is required to satisfy a company’s control process, and the company should not rely on the cloud provider for managing the capture of these logs (refer to shared responsibility, discussed in Chapter 1, Cloud Architecture and Navigation, and Chapter 2, Effective Techniques for Preparing to Audit Cloud Environments...