{"id":19513,"date":"2022-07-05T07:10:11","date_gmt":"2022-07-05T15:10:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/2022\/07\/05\/news-13246\/"},"modified":"2022-07-05T07:10:11","modified_gmt":"2022-07-05T15:10:11","slug":"news-13246","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/2022\/07\/05\/news-13246\/","title":{"rendered":"Cloud-based malware is on the rise. How can you secure your business?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Credit to Author: Bill Cozens| Date: Tue, 05 Jul 2022 14:34:06 +0000<\/strong><\/p>\n

There\u2019s a lot of reasons to think the cloud is more secure than on-prem servers, from better data durability to more consistent patch management \u2014 but even so, there are many threats to cloud security<\/a> businesses should address. Cloud-based malware is one of them.<\/p>\n

Indeed, while cloud environments are generally more resilient to cyberthreats than on-prem infrastructure, malware delivered over the cloud increased by 68%<\/a> in early 2021 \u2014 opening the door for a variety of different cyber attacks.  <\/p>\n

But you might be asking yourself: Doesn\u2019t my cloud provider take care of all of that cloud-based malware? Yes and no.<\/p>\n

Your cloud provider will protect your cloud infrastructure in some areas, but under the shared responsibility model<\/a>, your business is responsible for handling many security threats, incidents, responses, and more. That means, in the case of a cloud-based malware attack, you need to have a game plan ready.<\/p>\n

In this post, we\u2019ll cover four ways you can help secure your business against cloud-based malware.<\/p>\n

What ways can malware enter the cloud?<\/h2>\n

One of the main known ways the malware can enter the cloud is through a malware injection attack. In a malware injection attack<\/a>, a hacker attempts to inject malicious service, code, or even virtual machines into the cloud system.<\/p>\n

The two most common malware injection attacks are SQL injection attacks<\/a>, which target vulnerable SQL servers in the cloud infrastructure, and cross-site scripting attacks<\/a>, which execute malicious scripts on victim web browsers.\u00a0 Both attacks can be used to steal data or eavesdrop in the cloud<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Malware can also get into the cloud through file-upload.<\/p>\n

Most cloud storage providers today feature file-syncing, which is when files on your local devices are automatically uploaded to the cloud as they\u2019re modified. So, if you download a malicious file on your local device, there\u2019s a route from there to your business\u2019 cloud \u2014 where it can access, infect, and encrypt company data.<\/p>\n

In fact, malware delivered through cloud storage apps such as Microsoft OneDrive, Google Drive, and Box accounted for 69% of cloud malware downloads in 2021<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Four best practices to prevent cloud-based malware<\/h2>\n

1. Fix the holes in your cloud security<\/h3>\n

As we covered in our post on cloud data breaches<\/a>, there are multiple weak points that hackers use to infiltrate cloud environments \u2014 and once they find a way into your cloud, they can drop cloud-based malware<\/a> such as cryptominers and ransomware.<\/p>\n

Fixing the holes in your cloud security should be considered one of your first lines of defense against cloud-based malware. Here are three best practices:<\/p>\n