Cloud as we say it, sounds somewhat mystical when we talk about cloud computing. But it is not really any different than the conventional physical computing that we have been doing for ages. It still does rely on all the physical servers that used to be a part of computing and it was called the backbone of any computing network. The only difference comes at a point when by using some cloud architecture we access the storage capacity and hardware over the internet. By using these cloud architecture cloud service providers make a network of their servers located worldwide and make them available for anyone around the world. Anyone with a valid internet connection can access these servers. These clouds are available to access according to their categories. As public clouds can be accessed by anyone around the world, that makes it less secure to store data on. A private cloud is accessed by only authorized persons who have accessing rights. It is a relatively secured network. There is a hybrid cloud that can be accessed by anyone or some persons depend on what are the settings made by cloud owner.
There are multiple types of services offered by cloud service providers that are based on same basic concept but are yet different from each other in some way. But mainly, there are three types of services that cloud service providers offer. One is infrastructure as a service and in this service you rent all the hardware side of the cloud. Infrastructure is offered by the providers and you look after the software side of cloud. It is used by companies according to the requirements they have. Second one is platform as a service and in this service, providers rent you not only infrastructure but platform as well. You get all the hardware and software from service provider and then you run your application on it. Third and last one is software as a service and in this service you rent software according to your requirements. It is a complete package in which hardware, software and everything else is to be looked after by the service provider and you are given just software that you use by just paying the subscription charges.
What is a Security Manager?
Cloud security is the main purpose of hiring a security team. This security team does all the necessary measurements to get the data on cloud secured. From identifying a threat to analyzing it and responding it, everything is done by this team and this team is managed by security manager or in other words he is the head of security team.
Job Role and Responsibilities
Security manager is the person that is responsible for not only security of data but he is also the person who makes employees aware about security and how to work in a secured way creating a secured environment. There are multiple roles and responsibilities of a security manager in an organization and these roles are the ones that talk for them telling us how important he is. We will discuss some of those roles here.
- First and very important role of a security manager is to be a motivator. A motivator by his words and his actions. He is the one conducting sessions in organization every now and then just to motivate employees to work in an environment that ensures the security of everything. For that he teaches them how to build such environment. He is the one motivating them to take information security classes online to make employees aware of security and cyber threats will lead to nullify those attacks in a big margin.
- He leads the cyber security team in all the projects related to the cloud transformation or security issues.
- He, in the meetings with stockholders and partner companies briefs them about the value and importance of cloud services and its security to make sure that solutions are designed in a way that has security as one of the preferences.
- He is the one responsible to know about all the latest technology news and cyber security threats and share that with security team to work on it.
- He is the one who leads the implementation of all new cloud environments and newly developed technologies in the area of information technology and he also leads the way in testing all the software applications.
- He is the one who coordinates with and provides support to all the partner companies when in need regarding all kind of cloud security issues.
- He is the one to look after all the cloud architectural design of the organization, partner companies and all the client organizations.
- He is the one who analyzes the company’s security system and runs tests on the system to check for any kind of vulnerabilities.
- He provides the sessions on cloud security and potential cyber threats and responding techniques to the employees of client companies.
- He does all the troubleshooting in the company’s security system if anything suspicious comes up and responds to it in the least amount of time in a way that saves data loss. He also assists client company’s security teams regarding the same issue.
- Documentation regarding the cloud security is also his responsibility. He makes all the necessary documents and reports them to the higher management.
- Monitoring and maintenance is also one of his key roles. He makes his team monitor the system and they report to him if anything comes up as he is available all the time and is ready to respond anytime when an emergency comes up.
We need to have sufficient knowledge about cloud security and cyber threats if we want to understand the role of security manager in an organization. One can go for the information security courses online to understand cloud security and the amount of responsibilities that a security manager has. Safeguarding the data is the thing we all work for. Take information security courses online from Infosec Academy to understand the core skills.
