Global Security Forum

Security teams face ongoing urgency in the business to accelerate modernization to cloud environments. With the move to cloud, security can become an enabler and an accelerator for success. To do so, security organizations need two elements.  Those elements are 1/ effective execution of the security in the cloud environment and 2/ early engagement with the business in all modernization initiatives.

Supporting security for workloads in cloud entails embracing a Shared Responsibility Model and customers are not always executing well on security in the cloud responsibilities. AWS, as market share leader for public cloud infrastructure, has recognized that many customers need help in design and operation of their security responsibilities. Furthermore, whereas AWS provides rich native security capability, customers need help in optimizing design, configuration, and operation to capitalize on alignment of AWS native security and enterprise security operations.

AWS Helps Customers Align Shared Responsibilities

For this reason, AWS has introduced its Level 1 MSSP Competency program to help AWS customers embrace help with cloud security operations.  The Level 1 MSSP program defines key security operations functions and audits AWS Partners to confirm ability to deliver effective expertise and specialization protecting and managing essential AWS controls on behalf of their customers. As a result, organizations can refer to the Level 1 MSSP program to short list providers who can deliver security operations functions as an extension of an organization’s internal staff.

On July 26 at re:Inforce 2022, AWS announced addition of six security specializations to the Level 1 MSSP program, thus broadening security capabilities for which AWS partners can validate against. The six specializations include Modern Compute Security, Managed Application Security Testing, Data Privacy Event Monitoring, Identity Behavior Monitoring, Business Continuity and Digital Forensics Incident Response.  AWS customers can now select from up to sixteen AWS defined MSSP capabilities to pursue use of partners in delivering the shared responsibilities for security in cloud.

Security Must Engage Early In The Modernization Plan

Security organizations should engage early in the modernization process.  It is critical that an organization understand both cloud native security and the necessary operational capabilities to effectively secure cloud workloads to minimize risk. Many organizations will perform a current state assessment and define a roadmap to achieve capabilities needed to deliver shared responsibility. If the security roadmap can be captured and socialized before or at the beginning of a cloud modernization initiative, then security activity becomes an enabler and often leads to an accelerated migration due to the confidence level that is achieved.

Do not allow your organization to move slowly due to concerns about security in the cloud. A Fortune 200 organization was recently quoted to say, “…with the help of IBM Security, we have found that modernizing to AWS cloud actually matured and improved our security operations capability due to effective use of native security capabilities…”

IBM Security, one of few MSS providers that have been validated by AWS to deliver all ten Level 1 MSSP core capabilities plus five MSSP Specializations (services areas), is available to support 24/7 protection, monitoring and response.

IBM Security works with your organization as an extension of your team, offering expert guidance, consulting, systems integration and managed security services to help protect your AWS cloud environment. We enable you to embrace AWS native controls while aligning them with your enterprise security programs to simplify and centralize visibility. IBM’s modern security supports migration to cloud, so organizations can programmatically mature and transform enterprise security operations and capitalize on security as an accelerator for business modernization.