Cloud Compliance and Auditing Essentials
Cloud work is a shared responsibility. Compliance and auditing help you meet legal rules, protect data, and show customers you act responsibly. In practice, you need clear policies, automated evidence, and regular reviews.
Key elements include governance, risk management, and technical controls that map to standards such as SOC 2 and ISO 27001. Use a shared responsibility model to clarify who owns each control and who provides the evidence. A simple plan helps teams stay aligned and audit-ready.
What to audit
- Access and identity management: enforce least privilege and regular access reviews.
- Data protection: encryption at rest and in transit, plus strong key management.
- Change management: track configuration changes, approvals, and rollback options.
- Logging and monitoring: centralized, tamper-evident logs with alerts for unusual activity.
- Data residency and privacy: data location, retention, and data processing agreements.
- Incident response: defined runbooks, escalation paths, and drills.
Practical steps for teams
- Map controls to standards: create a living document that links each requirement to a cloud control.
- Build an evidence library: store policies, access reviews, change logs, and audit trails in a protected repo.
- Automate checks and alerts: use policy engines, scheduled scans, and alert dashboards.
- Review and attest: conduct quarterly reviews, with owners signing off on controls.
Examples from cloud platforms
- AWS: enable CloudTrail, configure Config, and use SecurityHub to summarize findings.
- Azure and Google Cloud: enable Activity/Audit Logs, set up policy enforcement, and use security dashboards.
Cloud compliance is ongoing but approachable. With clear ownership, automation, and regular reviews, teams can show progress and reduce risk.
Key Takeaways
- Start with a simple control map and evidence plan.
- Automate where you can and document everything.
- Regular reviews keep controls effective and audit-ready.