Ep. 128 Understanding Risks in the Hybrid Cloud

Today, we look at the proper way to manage the hybrid cloud for federal projects.

Our guest is the Chief Technology Officer for Thundercat Technology, Kurt Steege. Kurt has an extensive background that includes a stint as the Chief Enterprise Architect at the FBI.

An argument can be made that the move to the hybrid cloud can increase flexibility and reduce cost; an equally valid argument can be made that the increasing complexity of the hybrid cloud can cause poor visibility, insecure data transmission, and compliance issues.

We see federal agencies not getting boxed into a corner by using more than one cloud service provider. This may be great for financial reasons, but the hybrid cloud, by definition, is going to be much more difficult to observe. The risks are always changing, some cybersecurity experts say that Application Program Interfaces are the new attack vector; a multi-cloud system makes accounting for all of them hard.

Another obvious fact, if your agency moves to the “XYZ” cloud, there is a transmission of data. If they go ahead and send another application to the “ABC” cloud, there is another communications port. Each one adds to the attack surface for an agency.

Finally, each cloud service provider has diverse ways of offering compliance. At the end of the day, a federal official must sign off on the compliance. Understanding the subtilities of these differences may cause excessive delays.

Thundercat Technology has a white paper that could help. It is titled “Cloud Transformation Leads to Better Outcomes for Government Agencies.”