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Cyberthreats are escalating in complexity, and developers and business have the added regulatory backdrop enforced by GDPR and similar data protection restrictions enforced globally. Developers would be forgiven for thinking that all of these circumstances combine to further tie the hands when offering technological solutions, but the cloud actually offers opportunities that may not at first be apparent.

Cloud Migration

Using the cloud has become an almost essential tool for businesses who are looking to scale, and the use of cloud-based data warehouses, for example, has become more and more prevalent. The trend has been for businesses to take advantage of the tools offered by cloud service providers and the compliance frameworks that they operate under. This has been a clean way of solving a potential problem. Other tasks which may operate in a slightly grayer area are then kept in house to mitigate risk.

The Merger of Security and Compliance

Security and compliance used to be two different things, but that all changed when utilizing customer information became a technique in selective digital marketing. Of course customers got wise and soon began to demand that their data was not shared or used in this way, and that permission had to be sought. Hence the introduction of GDPR in Europe and other regulatory blocks such as California’s own version in the shape of the California Consumer Privacy Act, which is set to be introduced in 2010.

Security and compliance used to be two different things, but that all changed when utilizing customer information became a technique in selective digital marketing. Of course customers got wise and soon began to demand that their data was not shared or used in this way, and that permission had to be sought. Hence the introduction of GDPR in Europe and other regulatory blocks such as California’s own version in the shape of the California Consumer Privacy Act, which is set to be introduced in 2010.

“Now hands are beginning to be tied, for good reason, but traversing the regulations has become a complicated effort, with severe financial penalties the very real punishment for transgressions,” warns Tamil Patel.

As a result, businesses have got understandably nervous, and one way that this is manifested is in the way that security and compliance functions are increasingly being viewed as one and the same function. So, with this effective merger between the security and compliance functions, what has this meant for the cloud?

Automation

Developers are increasingly looking to automate repeated processes with in-built compliance structures in the validation process. This will effectively allow companies to keep a firm handle on security during these routines, but also streamline the validation process, maintaining a real-time view of compliance tasks and able to report more efficiently on these processes and their results. This is a means by which the security and compliance functions can be managed co-dependently, saving both time and efforts.

Auditing

One of the realities of this increasingly complex regulatory environment is the sheer weight of checks that this bestows upon organizations. As a result, companies are becoming burdened under these new obligations, and this takes away from the all-important tasks of effectively running a business. Again cloud-developer interventions are offering solutions to this problem. Increasingly, assessment cycles are being aligned with compliance through automation into one assessment that catches all. That is not only incredibly time-saving, it is efficient too.

The Impact upon Emerging Technology

With the proliferation of emerging technology, such as the IoT, blockchain, and AI, it is inevitable that compliance is beginning to stretch over to these innovations. This poses more questions for developers, but will likely see more of the same techniques employed, such as the aforementioned automation.

The Role of the Cloud Developer

As the cloud is a fluid ecosystem intertwined with numerous others, it is a monumental challenger for cloud developers to ensure security and compliance at every level: if they can’t then that will mean the ceasement of particular activities detrimental to the boardroom. Instead, developers are seeking to integrate functions into their processes and build infrastructure that answers these questions independently, not relying on alternative systems which may have fallen away due to the increased complexity of functions an migration to the cloud.

“Undoubtedly the key here is constant communication, and even merger between the previously independent security and compliance functions. If conversations can be had and infrastructure built that satisfies both of these issues, and can be easily executed through automated processes and auditing cycles, then a business is well and truly on the road to maintaining security and compliance at the same time,” commented Seb Toufal in a recent interview.