Page 28 - FCW, June/July 2021

Ignore Cloud Migration Myths
Ayear after the pandemic accelerated government agencies move into the cloud, they’re closer to modernizing their IT infrastructure. But, nagging concerns remain, including persistent myths around securing cloud-based architecture and the impact of adding security controls to legacy systems.
“We emphasize both of those concerns, and we take a very careful
and customized approach to securing workloads from being exploited,”
said David Abramowitz, Chief Technologist for Trend Micro’s Federal Business. Trend Micro has leveraged
its partnership with cloud provider Amazon Web Services (AWS) to provide security for cloud environments and legacy systems without compromising productivity, operations or the customer experience.
The future looks cloudy
The future for government is clearly in the cloud. The U.S. Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) has been pushing a cloud
first posture for years in an attempt to speed modernization of government IT.
A White House Executive Order (EO) signed May 12 calls for “bold action” and bringing to bear the full scope of the federal government’s “authorities and resources to protect and secure its computer systems, whether they are cloud-based, on-premises, or hybrid.”
Agencies should read the order as a push to continue their modernization efforts and phase out on-premises legacy apps in favor of Security as a Service (SaaS) and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) offerings.
Following federal government guidance and moving to a cloud first model will bring a bevy of benefits
– from freeing data and applications currently siloed in legacy systems to providing much-needed visibility across networks and offering the scalability to add people, apps and policies as needed. That makes for more nimble, responsive agencies and modernized IT, but legendary skimpy budgets, workforce shortages and the burden of supporting
legacy systems can still make it difficult to keep up with agency needs. Here’s what agencies can expect:
Scaling up is easy.
“Because the cloud is infinitely scalable, you can quickly get to a level that is unmanageable without automation,” said Abramowitz, who noted that automation is what allows agencies to migrate and manage apps “in fewer clicks, but poses a unique set of security challenges related to this temporal and elastic environment”
After 2020’s sudden work upheaval, that’s more important than ever. While pandemic restrictions are easing and more workers are finding their way back to the office, a more remote workforce
is here to stay. Agencies will have to accommodate employees secure access to applications they need to do their jobs, regardless of where they’re located.
A move to the cloud will amp up security.
Despite some lingering security myths and agency hesitancy about such
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