What is Multi-Cloud Security? Architecture & Best Practices

Secure your hybrid world with multi-cloud security! It unifies visibility, threat detection, and incident response across clouds, on-premises, and edge environments. You will ensure seamless protection and compliance for your complex IT landscape.

Companies are turning to multi-cloud services. Clients want more, which is why businesses need to diversify their offerings. Multi-cloud platforms give them this flexibility but also introduce added security risks. More attack surfaces pop up, and as you use different services, permissions strictures can become complex.

You can’t apply the same rules to one cloud as to another. Since every cloud environment is different, multi-cloud ecosystems function in varied and unique ways. In this guide, we will go over how multi-cloud security works and what you can do if your enterprise is headed in that direction.

What is Multi-cloud Security?

Multi-cloud security is security that uses a combination of tools, strategies, and practices to protect critical data, apps, and infrastructure across multiple and disparate cloud computing platforms. 

Its purpose is:

• To reduce complexity and mitigate risks
• Providing a single pane of glass view into security ops
• To enhance resilience and reduce attack surfaces

Why is Multi-Cloud Security Important?

Multi-cloud security is important because you can use it to reduce business security risks. If your company uses multiple cloud computing platforms, then you can use it to address the fragmentation of security and management controls.

Multi-cloud security can help fix misconfigured cloud services, prevent threats from laterally moving across interconnected ecosystems, reduce the blast radius of attacks, and also enforce consistent security policies. You can identify active and dormant accounts and prevent user account compromises by implementing it. Multi-cloud security can also help you meet your unique regulatory and data residency requirements for different geographic regions and cloud providers.

Key Features of Multi-Cloud Security

Here are the key features of multi-cloud security:

• Multi-cloud security solutions will offer you centralized controls. You can manage policies, configurations, and incidents across all cloud environments. You can standardize security policies across different cloud providers. 
• You also get other key features like real-time monitoring, logging, data backup and recovery, and anomaly detection. 
• When it comes to data protection, multi-cloud security includes strong cryptographic methods for securing data in transit and at rest across all clouds. Data Loss Prevention (DLP) technologies embedded will help monitor data flows and prevent unauthorized data sharing and exfiltration
• You also get more key features like Compliance as Code (CaC) checks, centralized reporting, vulnerability management, AI-powered threat detection and response, Cloud Security Posture Management, and cloud workload protection.

Key Components of Multi-Cloud Security

The key components of multi-cloud security are as follows:

• Data protection: Data classification, data encryption, and data loss prevention. Backup and recovery and strict access controls are also included.
• Compliance and governance: Governance includes policies, procedures, and standards that every cloud provider applies.  It also includes risk assessment and management and visibility. Compliance helps in making sure that all compliance rules are followed across different cloud providers.
• Network security: It secures communication channels between different cloud environments and on-premises infrastructure. Network security manages firewalls, virtual private networks (VPNs), and network segmentation across multiple cloud platforms. It also involves monitoring network traffic and implementing intrusion detection systems.
• Identity and access management (IAM): Who accesses what data and under what conditions, that's what IAM is about in multi-cloud security. It manages identities, roles, and user permissions. It also involves multi-factor authentication (MFA), identity federation, and enforcing the Principle of least privilege (PoLP).
• Threat detection and management: Real-time security monitoring and analysis of security events across all cloud environments. Multi-cloud security monitoring identifies potential threats, anomalies, and malicious activities using advanced analytics and machine learning. It also involves incident response, threat intelligence, and automated remediation capabilities.
• Automation: Streamlines security processes via automated tools and scripts across cloud platforms. It manages policy enforcement, compliance monitoring, and security configuration management automatically. It also involves orchestrating security responses and reducing manual intervention in routine security tasks.
• IaC Scanning: IaC scanning is a key component of every multi-cloud security solution. It identifies vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, exposed secrets, and ensures that you adhere to the best code-to-cloud practices. IaC can catch security issues early and also speed up the multi-cloud deployment process.
• Zero-trust security architecture: Never trust, always verify - it’s an approach that assumes no implicit trust within the network. It continuously validates every user, device, and application before granting access to resources. It also involves microsegmentation, least privilege access, and continuous monitoring of all interactions across cloud environments.

4 Key Aspects of Multi-Cloud Security 

Four cardinal points guide us in the labyrinth of Multi-cloud Security: Identity and Access Management (IAM), Data Protection, Threat Detection and Management, and Compliance and Governance. Each plays a crucial role in safeguarding your digital assets in the multi-cloud universe.

1. Identity and Access Management

IAM functions as the gatekeeper in the multi-cloud environment. It controls who gets access to what, ensuring only authorized individuals can access specific resources. This mechanism is as intricate as it is vital. It encompasses a variety of components, such as:

• Authentication: Verifying the identity of a user before granting access.
• Authorization: Defining user privileges, determining what actions a user can perform, on which resource, and under what circumstances.
• Federation: A method that links and uses the identity data from different security domains.
• Privileged Access Management: Controls critical systems and restricts access to only those necessary.

2. Data Protection

Data protection is the armor that shields your data when it’s at rest or in transit across multiple clouds. It’s like the safety harness when you’re navigating tricky terrains. Various protective measures include:

• Encryption: Converting data into an unreadable format to prevent unauthorized access.
• Backup and recovery: Safeguarding data by creating copies stored at different locations and the ability to restore it if necessary.
• Data loss prevention: Strategies to ensure unauthorized users do not manipulate or access data.

3. Threat Detection and Management

Threat detection and management are akin to your security radar and response team in the multi-cloud environment. It’s about spotting potential dangers and neutralizing them swiftly. Key aspects include:

• Security Information and Event Management (SIEM): It combines SIM (security information management) and SEM (security event management) to provide real-time analysis of security alerts.
• Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) and Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS): IDS monitors network traffic for suspicious activities, while IPS prevents detected threats.
• Endpoint detection and response: This cyber security approach continuously monitors and responds to potential threats in your network.

4. Compliance and Governance

Multi-cloud security compliance and governance is all about sticking to the right rules and following the necessary policies and regulations. It involves:

• Regulatory Compliance: Compliance with all pertinent laws, guidelines, and regulations germane to your enterprise.
• Risk Assessment: Recognizing, assessing, and prioritizing threats to fulfill regulatory norms.
• IT Governance: A blueprint ensures that IT ventures back up their business objectives.

How Multi-Cloud Security Works?

Multi-cloud security combines and secures technologies provided by multiple cloud service providers. It reduces fragmentation, improves visibility, and protects the data users share across these environments. It aims to provide consistent risk management and offers organizations great flexibility, cost savings, and access to different services and capabilities.

You can view the health of your services and apps from a unified console, solve navigational challenges, and address multiple security concerns from one place.

Benefits of Implementing Multi-Cloud Security

Here are the top multi-cloud security benefits:

• No vendor lock-in: You get the best of each cloud and can match specific features and capabilities to optimize your workloads. The geographical location, security and compliance requirements, speed, performance, reliability, and scalability don’t matter since multi-cloud security factors all those in. You don’t have to worry about vendor lock-in periods. 
• Reduced TOC: You get greater interoperability, and all your cost issues are addressed, mainly when you rely on multiple cloud solutions. You can lower your TOC and combine the best pricing policies across different service providers.
• Ensures business continuity: Multi-cloud security prepares your enterprise for unplanned downtimes and outages. Since there is no risk of a single point of failure, an outage in one service or cloud won’t disrupt other services in other clouds.
• Improved compliance: Your computing needs will be routed to different clouds, and multi-cloud security strategies enable you to deploy and scale workloads while consistently implementing the latest and best security policies and compliance technologies across all of them.
• Easier security management: You can improve your business offerings without being limited to the choices offered by a single cloud service provider. This makes managing multiple security services much easier and smoother.
• Improved security posture: Multi-cloud security can add comprehensive protection and mitigate business risks. It addresses siloed tools and provides centralized visibility and management. You get unified dashboards for simplified reporting, risk management, and security monitoring.

Challenges of Securing Multi-Cloud Environments

35% of companies have already implemented a multi-cloud security strategy and 78% are opting for them. But adoption doesn't necessarily mean a smooth transition. Multi-cloud security does have its own hurdles. Below is the list of common multi-cloud security challenges faced by organizations:

• Lack of deep visibility: Multi-cloud environments face the issue of limited visibility because each platform has its own monitoring and auditing solutions that work typically within the ecosystem they are based.
• Fragmented data: Multi-cloud security architectures can fragment data and increase security risks. You store more information across expanding attack surfaces. It's hard to keep track of all that data and securely store it.
• Compliance issues: Every cloud provider has different compliance requirements. Every state and geographical region too, which means dealing with multiple jurisdictions can become really challenging.
• Difficulty in automation: You can't completely automate multi-cloud security since you deal with different APIs, configurations, and toolkits. It's a lot harder to implement seamless automation across multi-cloud security processes.
• Cross-cloud data transfers: These are another challenge. Data delivery between multiple cloud providers also increases security risks, including data exposure risks during transit. 
• Accidental data leaks: There is also the possibility of man-in-the-middle attacks or accidental data leaks. Cloud providers have their own identity and access management systems, which are difficult to integrate with your existing multi-cloud security solutions. You may also face challenges coordinating your multi-cloud security and incident response efforts across different platforms.

Best Practices for Multi-Cloud Security

Here are the best multi-cloud security practices:

• Start using single sign-on. Single sign-on creates a streamlined authentication process. It will grant your users access to multiple cloud services safely and securely. You can reduce the chance of unauthorized access and not compromise their credentials. Just consolidate authentication processes into a single secure system.
• Add multifactor authentication and implement it across all your multi-cloud environments to add extra layers of protection. It's also a good idea to conduct regular reviews and audits. 
• Fix outdated permissions, remove dormant accounts, and maintain the same level of security across all your cloud environments. 
• Use data loss prevention tools and prevent data leaks. Enforce the best data handling policies and practices to get visibility into your multi-clouded data usage. 
• Check your encryption standards and keys. Ensure your keys are regularly rotated—encryption protocols like RSA secure data in transit and at rest.
• Explore multi-cloud security challenges and solutions to get an idea of what works and doesn’t work for your business. Test out different multi-cloud security products to find the right fit for your enterprise.

Multi-Cloud Security Strategies for Enterprises

Adopting a multi-cloud security strategy can improve your organization’s business performance and raise security benchmarks. Here are the most popular multi-cloud security strategies being currently employed by modern enterprises:

• Unifying security frameworks: Organizations are working on fixing disparate tools, services, and multi-cloud security silos. They are focusing on connecting better and unifying security frameworks.
• Applying zero-trust architecture access controls: Trust nobody, verify everyone. Enterprises are working on reducing unauthorized multi-cloud data access. Role-based access controls and IAM platforms enabled with adaptive access policies are the key highlights in this area.
• AI threat detection and incident response: Organizations are switching to AI threat detection and incident response. They are revamping their multi-cloud security strategy by incorporating deep learning neural nets for security automation. Real-time SIEM solutions enable them to ingest and analyze data from multiple clouds. Enterprises also implement automated playbooks and workflows that streamline their multi-cloud security actions and responses.

Multi-Cloud Security with SentinelOne

SentinelOne gives you all the tools you need to achieve optimal multi-cloud security. You can stop adversaries and protect your agencies with unified, autonomous, FedRAMP high-authorized AI-powered security solutions. 

SentinelOne Singularity™ Cloud Workload Security

SentinelOne Singularity™ Cloud Workload Security helps you prevent ransomware, zero-days, and other runtime threats in real time. It can protect critical cloud workloads including VMs, containers, and CaaS with AI-powered detection and automated response. SentinelOne CWPP supports containers, Kubernetes, virtual machines, physical servers, and serverless. It can secure public, private, hybrid, and on-prem environments.

SentinelOne Singularity™ Cloud Security (CNAPP)

SentinelOne's AI-powered CNAPP can remediate threats with automated or 1-click response and rollback actions. Purple AI provides analytics with critical context through natural language threat hunting and AI-powered event summaries. You can also streamline workflows and accelerate response to security incidents with built-in, no-code Hyperautomation. Ensure compliance across more than 30 frameworks like CIS, SOC2, NIST, ISO27K, MITRE, and more.

SentinelOne enables GitLab secret scanning and features Snyk integration. It integrates directly into your CI/CD pipelines and can detect over 750 types of hardcoded secrets, including API keys, credentials, cloud tokens, encryption keys, and more—before they ever reach production. SentinelOne stops secret leaks at the source, reduces false positives, and ensures continuous compliance.

CNAPP customers rank SentinelOne highly and it offers 100% detections with 88% less noise, according to the industry-leading MITRE ENGENUITY ATT&CK Evaluation. You get outstanding analytic coverage 5 years in a row and zero delays.

Singularity™ Cloud Native Security

Singularity™ Cloud Native Security can provide a seamless agentless onboarding experience. It focuses on alerts that matter, eliminates false positives, and reduces alert fatigue.

SentinelOne’s Offensive Security Engine™ can uncover and remediate vulnerabilities before attackers strike. Its Verified Exploit Paths™ and advanced attack simulations help identify hidden risks across cloud environments—far beyond traditional detection. With automated checks for misconfigurations, secret exposure, and real-time compliance scoring across AWS, Azure, GCP, and more, SentinelOne gives organizations an edge.

Conclusion

If you’re switching to a multi-cloud security strategy or thinking of adopting that architecture, you’d want comprehensive protection. Holistic security should be your goal since your adversaries will always be looking out for new opportunities to exploit. Make sure you train your employees also on how to deal with these threats and use the right multi-cloud security tools, technologies, and workflows. You can reach out to the SentinelOne team for assistance. We’re happy to help.

FAQs

What is Multi-Cloud Security?

Multi cloud security is a combination of security products, processes, technologies, tools and user practices designed to secure multi cloud environments. Multi-cloud environments combine public, private, and hybrid clouds, and multi-cloud security refers to the workflows and products used to secure them.

Multi-Cloud Security vs. Single-Cloud Security

The difference between multi-cloud security and single-cloud security is that multi-cloud is designed for multiple users and multiple cloud ecosystems, while single-cloud security is restricted to a single cloud and does not incorporate integrations, third parties, or outside elements.

How to Ensure Compliance in Multi-Cloud Environments?

You can ensure compliance in multi-cloud environments by using a solution like SentinelOne.

It will help you adhere to the strictest industry regulatory standards and prevent policy violations. It will also adapt to the latest benchmarks and rules that are issued or imposed by different states so that you’re always compliant.

Role of Identity Management in Multi-Cloud Security

The role of identity management in multi-cloud security is to scan all users across multiple cloud environments. It actively searches and finds dormant accounts and eliminates any hidden malicious activities. Identity management also aims to secure your multi-cloud credentials, ensure regular rotation of secrets, and ensure that all your multi-cloud identities are safe, secure, compliant, and not at risk of any privacy violations.

Future of Multi-Cloud Security

The future of multi-cloud security will move towards the evolution of observability tools, DevOps security and robust security solutions. Open standards are going to facilitate more seamless integrations. There will be an emergence in containers and serverless computing solutions being used more in multi-cloud environments. AI and deep learning will continue to automate multi-cloud security tasks and activities like vulnerability scanning, patch management, and threat detection. This will improve multi-cloud security efficiency, reduce human error, and speed up incident response times.

Can multi-cloud environments comply with data protection regulations?

Yes, multi-cloud environments can comply with data protection regulations. SentinelOne isan excellentt example of this.

Are multi-cloud environments more vulnerable to cyberattacks?

Yes, multi-cloud environments are more vulnerable to cyber attacks because of the expanding attack surfaces. More clouds mean more opportunities for threat actors to exploit vulnerabilities from various angles and systems.

What industries benefit the most from multi-cloud security?

All industries benefit the most from multi-cloud security solutions. It doesn’t matter whether you’re in agriculture, education, technology, business, or even finances; your organization will benefit from implementing the latest multi-cloud security solutions.