What Resilience Do Firms Need Beyond Threat Prevention? Experts Discuss AWS Outage

Synopsis
Key Takeaways
- Modern IT ecosystems rely heavily on a few key cloud providers.
- Resilience must extend beyond threat prevention.
- Business continuity plans should address both cyber and non-cyber disruptions.
- Zero-trust frameworks can enhance visibility and control.
- Stability during failures is crucial for business operations.
New Delhi, Oct 21 (NationPress) The modern landscape of IT ecosystems is intricate, interconnected, and heavily reliant on a few essential cloud service providers. This was highlighted by Keeper Security's co-founder and CEO, Darren Guccione, during the recent Amazon Web Services (AWS) outage that affected numerous daily applications and approximately one thousand websites.
For large enterprises, this occurrence underscored the necessity for resilience that transcends mere threat prevention.
The cybersecurity expert emphasized that business continuity strategies must encompass both cyber and non-cyber interruptions, ensuring that privileged access, authentication, and backup systems remain secure and operational, even when core infrastructure experiences disruptions.
When incidents of this magnitude transpire, whether due to technical failures or misconfigurations, the repercussions on global operations can be as critical as those resulting from a coordinated cyber assault, he explained.
Guccione noted that while major internet outages often trigger immediate fears of a cyber attack, recent reports suggest that the significant AWS disruption stemmed from an internal infrastructure issue, rather than malicious intent.
"This is a crucial distinction, as not every system failure is indicative of a cybersecurity breach. Confusing the two can obscure the true understanding of where the actual risks reside," he remarked.
According to him, Zero-trust frameworks and Privileged Access Management (PAM) solutions are designed to safeguard against nefarious actors; however, they also play an essential role in maintaining visibility and control during system outages, while enhancing customer resilience and incident response capabilities.
"Genuine resilience is not solely about thwarting attacks; it’s about ensuring stability when failures transpire," he added.
On Monday, Amazon Web Services (AWS) experienced a significant global outage lasting approximately 15 hours. A multitude of online services, including popular social media platforms, banking apps, streaming services, and video games, faced disruptions.
Amazon's AWS is the largest cloud provider globally, holding a 30 percent market share, while Microsoft’s Azure accounts for 20 percent, and Google’s services comprise 13 percent, according to Statista.