When the Cloud Goes Down, Will Your Security Go With It?

• Overreliance on the cloud may be leaving you more exposed than you realize.
• Cloud outages can happen to anyone, but when they take your security tools down they disrupt access, frustrate users and rack up millions in downtime costs.
• Chain attacks and malware are evolving every day, finding new ways to slip through your cloud provider’s cracks. Is your resilience strategy built to keep up? 

Cloud usage across industries is exploding—-and there’s been no shortage of major cloud outages since the beginning of Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). Even trusted providers like Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services and Cloudflare, powering everything from global enterprises to small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs), faced major outages in the last two years. When AWS experiences issues, it takes out everything from payment processing systems to TV streaming services.

These outages are usually triggered by misconfigurations, leaked credentials or software bugs—with human error right at the center. Gartner projects that through 2025, 99% of cloud security failures will result from human error, underscoring the urgent need for strong access controls and ongoing user training. Still, infrastructure failure, natural disasters and cyberattacks remain significant factors—and Symantec and Carbon Black Threat Hunters expect cloud breaches to keep rising. 

Already in 2025, 47% of all data breaches have targeted cloud-based systems, marking a 5% increase from the previous year. Attackers are using these breached cloud platforms as cover to slip right in, targeting businesses, employees and troves of sensitive data. So when the very tools meant to secure the cloud go down with it, what’s left to protect you? 

Gone with the cloud: A cybersecurity tragedy

Legacy business continuity and disaster recovery (BC/DR) strategies weren’t built for today’s cloud-native and highly distributed environment—and it shows. The truth is, as more security services move to the cloud, they become vulnerable to the same outages they’re meant to guard against. 

Organizations risk losing access to their critical cloud-hosted security services like:

• Malware protection
• Firewall enforcement
• Secure Web Gateway (SWG) controls
• Identity and Access Management (IAM)

When these protections are offline, businesses are left naked in the wind, exposed to cyber threats. It’s this kind of gap that came into focus early this year, when a supply chain malware attack hit 100 auto dealerships through a third-party provider—a not-so-great reminder of how fast things can go wrong when key protections are down. 

The consequences are costly, too. In 2023, 93% of enterprises reported downtime costs exceeding $300,000 per hour. And with 71% of organizations listing data loss or leakage as a top cloud security concern, it’s clear we’ve let cloud convenience lull us into a dangerous comfort zone. It’s time for a new approach to resilience for business continuity in the cloud era.

5 ways to future-proof your cloud security 

Instead of resisting the world’s cloud-ward shift, organizations need to rethink their continuity strategy while keeping cloud failure in mind. Here’s how to harden your cloud security posture and stay resilient:

1. Diversify your stack with a multicloud architecture 

Relying on a single provider creates a single point of failure. One way to reduce this risk is a multi-cloud approach in which you distribute your workload across multiple providers, thus providing maximum resiliency. However, true multi cloud architecture is often prohibitively expensive. If that is not possible, at minimum ensure that all critical services are hosted in different geographic regions not just multiple zones in the same region as we have learned that outages often affect an entire region. 

2. Strengthen your identity and access management (IAM) 

With identity at the backbone of cloud security, set up your IAM systems with redundant authentication paths, adaptive access controls, network microsegmentation and stricter least-privilege policies. These upgrades will help keep attackers out and limit their movement during a disruption. 

3. Reinforce zero trust with cloud-native enforcement

Enforcing strong, contextual access controls makes sure only authorized users can gain access. You can reduce your attack surface, even during disruptions, by pairing these controls with on-prem protections and cloud-delivered enforcement points.

4. Monitor your infrastructure’s health 

Hardware failures, unpatched systems and overlooked dependencies can all cause downtime. Proactive upkeep through lifecycle planning, regular software updates and cloud risk assessments can help prevent future inhouse incidents. 

5. Stay audit-ready with built-in compliance resilience 

Regulations like GDPR and DORA are increasingly requiring built-in failovers, multi-cloud readiness and secure access during outages. Choosing tools that support these capabilities and offer reliable audit trails will help you streamline shifting compliance standards. 

Cloud security’s next chapter

While some teams may still be balking at the time and resources it takes to build cloud resilience, the payoff outweighs the efforts. Whether you’re running a global enterprise or growing an SMB, it pays to choose tools and strategies that can adapt as conditions change. In the long run, a multi-pronged effort makes all the difference in securing your business and reputation. 

Here’s where to start: 

AI-powered resilience. 

AI systems trained on real attack behavior can spot early signs of trouble and recognize when they’re part of a larger attack chain. Tools with true foresight into an attacker’s next likely steps will help you predict failures and respond before attacks complete. 

Decentralized, cloud-agnostic security. 

Avoid putting all your security eggs in one cloud basket by incorporating cloud-agnostic security tools that work across providers. This kind of architecture gives you flexibility and improves resilience without slowing down workload shifts if a regional or localized failure happens. 

Built-in continuity and compliance. 

As governments implement stronger mandates, cover your bases with future-ready tools both on and off premises that are prepared for the regulations of tomorrow. Automated reporting, recovery and access controls can come especially handy in helping you stay secure through outages and audits alike. 

Choose resilience and continuity

To stay secure when uncertainty hits, you need security tools that can keep up—especially when your primary provider can’t. Symantec Security Service Edge (SSE) delivers Cloud Secure Web Gateway (SWG) as a reliable, cost-effective failover option that preserves web visibility, enforces security policy and maintains inspection across all traffic—even if your main cloud or on-premise security controls go down.

To get ahead of the next disruption (because we can’t act like it won’t happen), you’ll need to build a framework that keeps your operations and security resilient, giving your teams a better night’s sleep—and potentially saving you millions in downtime costs. Organizations that adopt adaptive and intelligent security strategies alongside robust disaster recovery plans today will be best equipped to withstand tomorrow’s cloud failures without compromising their defenses. 

Outages happen—how you prepare marks the difference. Watch the SANS Research Program’s on-demand webinar, Resilience and Business Continuity in the Cloud Era, featuring myself and Dave Shackleford, for expert guidance on modernizing your BC/DR plan.

For an actionable roadmap to resilience and continuity, download the whitepaper.