Cloud Security Architecture and Governance
Cloud security architecture and governance establishes how your cloud environments should be configured and controlled, which responsibilities remain yours under the shared responsibility model, and how configuration is kept correct as the environment changes.
- Part of
- The design and running of the controls a strategy depends on.
- Engaged as
- A defined piece of work, or as part of an ongoing vCISO engagement.
- Sits under
- Executive ownership of the cybersecurity program.
Timing
When organizations engage this
- A migration is planned and the security design has not been settled.
- Nobody can produce a current inventory of cloud accounts, workloads or administrative access.
- A customer questionnaire or audit asked specific questions about cloud configuration and encryption.
- A misconfiguration was discovered, publicly exposed storage, an over-permissive role, an unmonitored account.
- Costs or environments have grown to the point where nobody has the whole picture.
What you receive
- Cloud environment and account inventory with administrative access mapped
- Target security architecture with a prioritized remediation plan
- Written shared-responsibility boundary for each platform in use
- Configuration baseline and governance process
The problem
Why this comes up
Cloud environments accumulate. A platform is adopted for one project, extended for another, and configured by whoever was available at the time. Two years later nobody can say with confidence which accounts exist, what is exposed to the internet, or who holds administrative access.
The shared responsibility model makes this consequential. Providers secure the platform; configuration, access and data handling remain with the customer, and that is where most cloud incidents originate.
The service
What this engagement is
Who it is for
- Organizations whose cloud footprint grew project by project without an overall design.
- Companies that cannot currently produce an accurate inventory of cloud accounts and administrative access.
- Businesses migrating a significant workload and wanting the security design settled before, not after.
- Leadership teams whose customers or auditors have started asking specific cloud configuration questions.
A review of how your cloud environments are structured and governed, followed by a target architecture and the controls needed to hold it, identity and access, network exposure, logging, encryption, and the separation between production and everything else.
Governance matters as much as the design. Cloud platforms change continuously, and an architecture that is correct at handover but has no mechanism to stay correct will drift within months.
Scope
What Heights does
-
Environment and account review
What exists, who administers it, how environments are separated, and what is reachable from the internet.
-
Shared responsibility clarification
A written statement of what your provider secures and what remains yours, the boundary most commonly misunderstood.
-
Identity and network design
How access is granted and revoked, how privileged operations are controlled, and how workloads are segmented.
-
Logging, monitoring and encryption
What is recorded, where it goes, how long it is kept, and how data is protected at rest and in transit.
-
Configuration governance
How the environment is kept in its intended state as it changes: baselines, review, and who approves an exception.
- NIST CSF
- A widely used structure for organizing a security program around outcomes rather than products. Its current version adds an explicit governance function, which is why it maps well onto executive-level work.
- ISO 27001
- An international standard for an information security management system: the governance, risk treatment and continual improvement processes around security, rather than a fixed control list.
- SOC 2
- An examination performed by a licensed CPA firm against the AICPA trust services criteria. Security is always in scope; availability, confidentiality, processing integrity and privacy are added when relevant.
- HIPAA
- The HIPAA Security Rule requires administrative, physical and technical safeguards for electronic protected health information, including a documented risk analysis and risk management process. The Breach Notification Rule sets defined duties and timelines once a breach is discovered. HITECH extended enforcement and applies obligations directly to business associates.
- PCI DSS
- Prescriptive control requirements imposed through payment brand agreements wherever cardholder data is stored, processed or transmitted. Scope reduction is usually the highest-leverage decision available.
The flagship
How this fits under vCISO leadership
Architecture decisions are trade-offs between security, cost and delivery speed, and they belong with somebody accountable for the whole program. A vCISO sets the direction the design serves and keeps it aligned as the environment grows.
Sectors
Where this comes up most
- Healthcare Statutory obligations for protected health information, clinical availability requirements that constrain how controls can be applied, and growing security scrutiny from payers and partners.
- Financial Services Several supervisory regimes at once, and several of them expecting a named individual to be accountable for the information security program.
- Technology and SaaS Companies assessed by their own customers, where security maturity shows up in the sales cycle long before it shows up in an audit.
- Government and Defense Contractors Contractual security requirements that determine eligibility to bid, and assessment regimes that verify them before an award rather than after an incident.
First steps
How an engagement begins
The same three steps whichever service you start with.
-
A confidential conversation
What prompted the enquiry, what you are obliged to do, and what leadership is being asked to answer for. No cost, no obligation.
-
Scope agreed in writing
What Heights will do, what stays with you, the working rhythm, and how progress will be reported.
-
Work begins
Delivered by your team, your providers or Heights, with expectations and acceptance criteria stated up front.
FAQ
Questions we are asked about this
Broader questions about executive security leadership are answered on the vCISO page.
Is our data secure because our cloud provider is certified?
A provider's certification covers the provider's responsibilities, the physical infrastructure, the hypervisor, the platform services. It does not cover how you configure those services, who you grant access to, or what you do with the data.
Most cloud incidents originate on the customer side of that boundary, which is why establishing it in writing is usually the first piece of work.
Do you work with a specific cloud platform?
The architecture and governance principles are the same across the major platforms; the implementation detail differs. The work adapts to what you already run rather than steering you toward a particular provider.
Where multiple platforms are in use, the governance question is usually more important than any single platform's configuration.
Does Heights implement the changes or design them?
Either. Some organizations want the design and remediation plan and will execute it with their own team or their existing provider; others want Heights to coordinate the implementation.
Where your provider does the work, the design gives them a clear specification and gives you a basis for confirming it was met.
Insights
Related reading
-
Compliance
How FedRAMP Authorization Works and What It Requires Before You Apply
FedRAMP authorization allows cloud service providers to sell to federal agencies through a standardized security assessment process. Leadership must understand the timeline, evidence requirements and internal ownership structure before committing to an authorization effort that typically spans twelve to eighteen months and requires continuous executive oversight.
-
Compliance
When Log Retention Becomes a Legal Obligation and What That Means for Cloud Accounts
Organizations face legal and regulatory requirements to preserve specific system logs for defined periods, but cloud environments create complexity around who is responsible for which records. This article explains what log retention obligations exist, where the shared responsibility model leaves gaps, and how to establish clear ownership so the organization can meet its compliance duties without ambiguity.
Portfolio
Related services
- Identity and Access Management Strategy A defensible answer to who has access to what, how they got it, and how it is removed, the question every assessment asks and most organizations answer from memory.
- Managed Security Services Continuous monitoring, detection and response, and vulnerability management, run against priorities the security strategy has already set.
- Security Program Assessment A documented picture of what your security program actually covers, measured against a recognized framework, with the gaps ranked by business consequence.