97 Things Every Information Security Professional Should Know

Chapter 23. The Key to Success in Your Cloud Journey Begins with the Shared Responsibility Model

Dominique West

Whether you are new to the cloud or a seasoned technology professional, fully understanding the shared responsibility model and how this framework plays a role in your organization’s digital transformation is paramount. Rest assured you are not alone if hearing about this framework is new or understanding it has been confusing—many studies, including one by Help Net Security, have indicated that 7 out of 10 organizations have suffered a public cloud security incident in 2020 with 66% of them being the result of an exploited misconfiguration. So how can you make sure your organization is not part of this growing statistic? Let’s take a look at what this framework is and how to put it into action.

What Is This Framework and Why Should It Apply?

Many organizations and security professionals have been following the perimeter-based model for quite some time (probably since the dawn of cybersecurity) and it makes sense as to why. Security largely has to do with control and pre-cloud era control involved everything inside of the organizational perimeter. Unfortunately, this model does not apply to our current digital age, as the cloud shatters your perimeter into a thousand pieces that can be difficult to keep up with. Alas, the shared responsibility model emerges as a way ...