The Tool Desk
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Plan the environment and define responsibility
1. Map the shared-responsibility model
Before deploying a workload, document which controls the provider operates and which your organization must configure or manage. The division changes with the service model: an IaaS customer typically has more responsibility for operating-system and workload configuration than a SaaS customer, while SaaS still leaves customer-controlled access, data, and settings to manage. Confirm the division for each specific service rather than relying on a broad assumption about the provider.
Turn that map into named owners for identity, data, applications, logging, backups, and incident response. CISA’s ransomware guidance recommends reviewing the cloud shared-responsibility model; its Cloud Security Technical Reference Architecture also addresses cloud migration and operations. The result should make it clear who will configure a control, who will monitor it, and who will act if it fails.
2. Inventory accounts, services, data, and identities
Create and maintain an inventory of cloud accounts and subscriptions, services and workloads, sensitive data, administrative identities, and the teams responsible for them. Include environments that were created outside the central deployment process if they are in scope. Without this inventory, it is difficult to know where important data resides, which identities can reach it, or whether security events are visible.
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For multiple providers, plan how teams will see and investigate activity across them. CISA’s architecture guidance highlights the need for situational awareness and consistent security practices in multi-cloud environments. Record relevant differences in identity, logging, and service coverage instead of assuming that a control or event is represented identically everywhere.
Control access and credentials
3. Require MFA for high-impact access
Require multi-factor authentication (MFA) for administrators and other high-impact accounts, and for remote access where the service supports it. Prefer phishing-resistant methods for important access when the cloud provider and identity provider support them. CISA identifies physical security keys as one MFA option; verify that a key works with the relevant account and identity setup before selecting one.
Make MFA part of the access policy, not an optional instruction for individual users. Identify any accounts or services that cannot meet the requirement, document the exposure and compensating safeguards, and revisit the exception as support changes.
4. Apply least privilege and review access
Give each person, service, and workload only the permissions needed for its assigned task. Keep routine work separate from administrative work, restrict powerful roles to the people and processes that need them, and avoid broad permissions as a shortcut around access design. CISA’s architecture material describes least privilege as a core access-management principle.
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Review users, service identities, roles, and privilege grants on a recurring schedule and when responsibilities change. Remove stale accounts and permissions, and make sure emergency access is controlled and understood. A review is useful only if someone owns the follow-up actions and verifies that excess access was actually removed.
5. Manage secrets, keys, and tokens deliberately
Keep credentials, API keys, signing keys, and tokens out of source code and general-purpose configuration wherever practical. Restrict who and what can retrieve them, use managed secret storage and key controls suited to the service, and monitor sensitive access. Define how credentials are issued, rotated when appropriate, revoked, and recovered; there is no single rotation interval or implementation that fits every provider and workload.
Pay attention to token validation and secrets handling in cloud identity flows. CISA’s cloud identity discussion, dated July 15, 2025, identifies these as significant concerns. Include secret access and token-related events in the monitoring plan where the service exposes them.
Make configuration and activity visible
6. Enable and centralize useful logs
Enable the available logs that help explain access and changes: identity and authentication events, administrative actions, cloud resource activity, application activity, and relevant network events. Decide which logs matter for each service, then centralize them where appropriate so responders can correlate activity across environments. CISA recommends enabling cloud-service logs, centralizing them, monitoring high-risk events, and restricting access to the logs.
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Set alerts for actions that warrant investigation, such as unexpected privilege changes or suspicious use of sensitive resources. Protect the log store against unauthorized changes or deletion, limit access to it, and define retention according to operational and applicable requirements. CISA’s July 15, 2025 cloud identity discussion notes that limited telemetry and short retention can hinder investigations; choose retention intentionally rather than leaving it to an unnoticed default.
7. Use repeatable configurations and detect drift
Where appropriate, deploy resources from reviewed templates or approved baselines, and control changes through a documented process. Compare the live environment with the intended configuration so teams can identify settings that have changed or resources introduced outside the expected workflow. Investigate drift, determine whether it is authorized, and restore or document the configuration deliberately.
CISA’s ransomware guidance explicitly recommends checking for configuration drift. For covered cloud business applications, CISA’s Secure Cloud Business Applications (SCuBA) project provides assessment and hardening resources. Its Microsoft 365 baseline announcement dates to October 20, 2022, so check the current SCuBA resources and product coverage rather than treating an older baseline announcement as the latest version.
Protect information and prepare to recover
8. Protect sensitive data in transit and at rest
Choose encryption and key-management settings based on the service, data sensitivity, and threat model. Verify the actual service configuration and defaults: a provider’s general encryption statement does not establish that every workload, storage location, transfer path, or key-access policy is configured as intended. Restrict access to keys and review who or what can use them.
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Do not assume one encryption setting is universally sufficient across providers or workloads. Record the chosen controls and their owners alongside the data inventory so they can be checked when the service or data use changes.
9. Back up data and test restoration
Back up important data regularly and test that it can be restored within the time and recovery-point needs of the workload. A backup that has never been restored in a test is not proof that recovery will work. Assign responsibility for the backup process and for validating the recovered data and service.
Where available and suitable, use versioning, delete protection, or object lock to make recovery more resilient to accidental or malicious changes. These features differ by service and configuration; verify how they work for the specific storage resource. CISA’s ransomware guidance recommends backups, resource logging and alerts, and storage protections for resources often targeted by ransomware.
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10. Maintain components and SaaS settings
Patch and update the components your organization controls, including operating systems, applications, and dependencies in the workload. Track exceptions with an owner and review date rather than letting them become permanent by default. For SaaS, periodically reassess security settings as the service and its available controls evolve.
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- The available storage capacity may vary.
CISA’s SCuBA project offers SaaS configuration-hardening resources. Check its current baselines and supported products before using them; the October 20, 2022 announcement of Microsoft 365 baselines is a dated milestone, not a guarantee that those resources still reflect every current product or setting.
11. Choose security tools for operational fit
Compare provider features and security tools against the work your team needs to perform, rather than selecting on a feature list alone. Assess:
- Service coverage: whether the relevant accounts, workloads, and cloud services are included.
- Identity integration: whether the tool works with the identity providers and MFA methods in use.
- Log visibility: which events and fields are available, how long they remain accessible, and whether they can be exported.
- Correlation and posture assessment: whether teams can compare activity and configuration across environments and act on findings.
- Portability and operating effort: how difficult it is to move data or controls, and whether the team has the capacity to operate the tool reliably.
Cloud offerings can differ in log fields and monitoring capabilities, and CISA’s architecture guidance discusses posture-management considerations. Validate coverage and operating requirements against the services you actually use; a tool that cannot see an important environment or that no team can maintain leaves a practical gap.
12. Make security continuous and assign response roles
Set a recurring review cadence for access, alerts, logs, configuration drift, and backup recovery. Also reassess controls when a workload changes, a provider changes a service, or a new cloud environment is introduced. Give each review an owner and a way to track findings through resolution.
Before an incident, assign response roles and establish the contacts needed to involve internal teams and providers. CISA recommends policies and procedures for logging and monitoring and designating a crisis-response team. Ensure responders know where relevant evidence is collected and who can authorize containment or recovery actions.
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