Cloud Network Security: Essential Concepts and Techniques Covered in the Certified Cloud Security Engineer Certification

Network security is a crucial practice for businesses of all sizes and industries. As more and more organizations transfer their critical data and workloads into the cloud, the topic of cloud network security has become increasingly important.

If you’re interested in cloud network security, it’s an excellent idea to obtain a certification that can verify your skills and knowledge of this highly in-demand field. Below, we’ll discuss EC-Council’s Certified Cloud Security Engineer (C|CSE) certification and the various cloud network security concepts and techniques it covers.

Overview of the Certified Cloud Security Engineer (C|CSE) Certification

EC-Council is a leading provider of IT security courses, training programs, and certifications. The C|CSE (Certified Cloud Security Engineer) program offers the real-world skills and tools that students need to join the rapidly growing field of cloud security.

The C|CSE is a vendor-neutral course that helps develop the right combination of theoretical and practical skills, cloud security practices, technologies, frameworks, and principles. In particular, the C|CSE certification includes more than 50 hands-on labs that provide the practical experience students need to jumpstart their careers in cloud security.

C|CSE students learn a variety of skills over the course of 11 modules that will prepare them for real-world scenarios, including:

• Security configuration
• Penetration testing
• Digital forensics
• Incident response
• Business continuity and disaster recovery
• Risk management

The C|CSE course maps to more than 20 job roles and responsibilities of cloud security professionals, such as:

• Network security: Administrator/engineer/analyst
• Cybersecurity: Engineer/analyst
• Cloud: Administrator/analyst/engineer
• Information security professionals
• Network defense professionals

A Glimpse of What the C|CSE Covers Under Cloud Network Security

The C|CSE program thoroughly covers a wide range of topics in cloud computing security. Below, we’ll discuss how C|CSE helps IT professionals protect and defend a cloud security network.

Network Component Security

The C|CSE course addresses fundamental issues in network security, such as:

• Network components: Hardware or software within a cloud network environment, such as applications, routers, or firewalls.
• Network virtualization: The abstraction of network services and resources from the physical infrastructure, allowing for greater flexibility and scalability.
• The shared responsibility model: The division of cloud security responsibilities between cloud service providers (responsible for infrastructure security) and users (responsible for application and data security).

C|CSE students learn about important considerations in network component security and network virtualization security, including:

• Protecting virtualized network resources and traffic
• Maintaining isolation between different network components
• Defining network security controls
• Implementing security measures for routers, switches, and firewalls

AWS Cloud Platform and Infrastructure Security

The C|CSE program also covers vendor-specific network security topics for the three major public cloud providers: Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform. The AWS module covers network service security topics such as:

• Elastic load balancing: AWS’ elastic load balancing feature automatically distributes incoming traffic across multiple Amazon EC2 instances, thwarting distributed denial of service (DDoS) attempts and other attacks.
• Amazon VPC: Amazon VPC (Virtual Private Cloud) lets users create AWS resources inside a logically isolated virtual network environment, improving security by enforcing additional access controls (Amazon Web Services, 2024).
• EC2-VPC network access control: ECS-VPC NACLs (network access control lists) contain rules for filtering inbound and outbound traffic at the subnet level, adding another layer of security to AWS cloud infrastructure.

Azure Network Architecture Security

The Microsoft Azure production network serves as the main Azure cloud infrastructure (Microsoft, 2023). Graduates of the C|CSE course learn to perform Azure network security operations such as:

• Implementing virtual network service endpoints to configure access to specific Azure resources.
• Implementing the hub-spoke network topology to establish a centralized point where security controls are defined.
• Configuring Azure Bastion, a platform as a service (PaaS) solution that runs inside virtual networks to secure Remote Desktop and SSH access to Azure virtual machines.
• Using network security groups (NSGs) to filter virtual network traffic and scan for suspicious activities.
• Deploying Azure Firewall to create a perimeter security solution that protects Azure virtual network resources.
• Enabling Azure DDoS network protection to prevent attackers from flooding cloud infrastructure with malicious requests.

The C|CSE module on Azure also teaches best practices in infrastructure security and network security, such as

Implementing identity and access management (IAM) with Azure Active Directory (AD).

Requiring the use of multi-factor authentication (MFA)

Encrypting data both in transit and at rest.

Using built-in tools such as Azure Security Center and Azure Defender.

Enabling logging and monitoring to gain visibility into network traffic and security events.

Google Cloud Platform and Infrastructure Security

Google Cloud Platform provides a VPC (Virtual Private Cloud) feature, helping GCP customers create virtual networks inside physical cloud infrastructure (Google Cloud Platform, 2023). The C|CSE module on GCP teaches students important network security topics such as:

• Utilizing VPC to define the network.
• Using custom-mode VPC networks in Google Cloud Platform.
• Using a shared VPC to administrate multiple working groups
• Using VPC flow logs to monitor VM network traffic.

C|CSE students also learn about various GCP network security best practices, such as:

• Using Google Cloud Identity and Access Management (IAM) to authenticate and authorize users.
• Defining GCP firewall rules to monitor and control traffic to and from VM cloud instances.
• Configuring Private Google Access allows VMs to access GCP services without going over the public Internet.

How to Perform Security Operations for Cloud Infrastructure

Graduates of the C|CSE program learn about secure cloud network configuration topics such as:

• VLANs (virtual local area networks) segregate and isolate cloud network traffic. This limits the effectiveness of cyberattacks by making lateral movement within the network more difficult.
• The Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol encrypts data transmitted between users and cloud infrastructure. This preserves data integrity and confidentiality even on an untrusted network.
• DNS (Domain Name System) and DNSSEC (DNS Security Extensions) work together to prevent DNS-based attacks when domain names are translated into IP addresses.

Security Operations to Manage Cloud Infrastructure

C|CSE students learn about many different vendor-neutral network security operations and controls to manage cloud infrastructure. The program covers topics in network security controls such as:

• Firewalls act as a protective barrier by filtering incoming and outgoing network traffic. This prevents attackers from obtaining unauthorized access to restricted resources.
• Intrusion detection systems (IDS) monitor the IT environment in real time and search for suspicious patterns or behaviors. They can then send alerts about potential security breaches to network administrators.
• Intrusion prevention systems (IPS) go one step further by not only detecting but also actively blocking and preventing intrusion attempts. IPS solutions have automated rules in place to respond to various security events.
• Honeypots that serve as decoy systems or targets during a cyberattack. Attackers are diverted toward the honeypot and away from other valuable assets, allowing organizations to study their techniques.
• Vulnerability assessments that regularly scan and evaluate cloud infrastructure for potential weaknesses. These enable organizations to proactively fix weaknesses and reduce their attack surface.
• Network security groups that define rules to limit inbound and outbound traffic. These provide an additional layer of security and control to a cloud environment.

Conclusion

The topics above have just scratched the surface when it comes to the contents of the C|CSE program. Are you ready to begin your career in cloud security? Learn more about EC-Council’s C|CSE certification and start your cloud security training today.

References

1. Amazon Web Services. (2024). How Amazon VPC works. https://docs.aws.amazon.com/vpc/latest/userguide/how-it-works.html

2. Microsoft. (2023. February 04). Azure production network. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/security/fundamentals/production-network 

3. Google Cloud Platform. VPC networks. https://cloud.google.com/vpc/docs/vpc

About the Author 

David Tidmarsh is a programmer and writer. He’s worked as a software developer at MIT, has a B.A. in history from Yale, and is currently a graduate student in computer science at UT Austin.