
Public Cloud for Supply Chain Safety
CIO Review APAC | Tuesday, January 10, 2023

Many times cloud security concerns can lead to risk in the software supply chain. Therefore, businesses must initiate certain strategies to reduce risk while using the public cloud as a part of a software supply chain.
FREMONT, CA: Due to failures in major supply chain security, software supply chains have become a critical topic of discussion recently. The IT industries are emphasising more on the significance of understanding and securing software supply chains. However, cloud computing platforms are not becoming a major part of these conversations. Public clouds, which are more infrastructure than software, are excluded from software supply chains. However, cloud security concerns can seriously compromise software supply chains, although they are not software in themselves.
What is the Role of Cloud in Software Supply Chain Security?
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Regardless of various discussions and conversations regarding supply chain security, the role of cloud computing in supply chains has gained less attention among many companies. This is because the cloud is only part of a software supply chain, and the majority of public cloud platforms are fundamentally infrastructure providers and not software suppliers. Moreover, when there are possibilities for public cloud breach incidents, they rarely provide attackers direct access to entire IT environments of cloud customers, as has occurred with other platforms. Public cloud security incidents only reveal data that is stored in the cloud by customers.
Yet, there are several reasons companies can put forward rational arguments supporting public clouds as an absolute part of the software supply chain of any business that utilises public cloud platforms.
Clouds are Not Just Infrastructure: The primary benefit received by adopting public clouds is infrastructure as a service (IaaS). However, most cloud providers deliver various Software as a Service (SaaS) applications in addition to supplying infrastructure.
Infrastructure Security Breaches can Have Adverse Effects: Using only infrastructure services in the cloud can also lead to the exposure of data or applications to attackers due to vulnerabilities in the cloud provider’s platform.
Public Clouds can be Hacked: Customer data is frequently exposed through security breaches in the public cloud.
How to Reduce Risks When Using Public Cloud for Software Supply Chain?
A Better Understanding of the Cloud Environment
In software supply chain security, the primary step in protecting a cloud environment is to have precise knowledge of what runs where. This can be seen as impossible in large organisations where hundreds of people utilise cloud platforms. However, imposing tagging rules for cloud resources can enable businesses to keep track of cloud workloads, helping to display them for performing regular audits.
Reduce Data Exposure
Minimising the data stored in the public cloud can alleviate the risk of falling victim to a security breach with cloud platforms. This is also a reason to consider employing a hybrid cloud architecture that allows you to secure sensitive data on-premises.
Use Multiple Cloud Accounts
Another method is using different cloud accounts to spread workloads, which will minimise the impact of breaches. In many incidents, security attacks on public cloud platforms have occurred only on particular accounts and configurations.
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