What is cloud compliance?
Cloud compliance is the process of ensuring that cloud environments and the operations within them meet industry-specific regulatory and security standards. It involves aligning cloud configurations and processes with frameworks such as the Cloud Security Alliance Cloud Controls Matrix (CSA CCM), as well as mandates like HIPAA, GDPR, or FedRAMP—depending on the industry.
According to the Cloud Security Alliance, “the CCM can be used as a tool for the systematic assessment of a cloud implementation, and provides guidance on which security controls should be implemented by which actor within the cloud supply chain.” Therefore, depending on the industry a company is engaged in, there are powerful pre-existing frameworks teams can follow to ensure they stay compliant as the majority of their operations move into the cloud.
In heavily regulated sectors like healthcare, finance, and energy, cloud compliance automation is critical. Tools that detect compliance drift and automatically return cloud environments to a secure, compliant baseline can significantly reduce time, cost, and risk.
Common cloud regulations and standards
From state/territory-specific to nationally recognized compliance standards affecting multiple industries, there are many legally required – and some heavily suggested – regulatory frameworks out there. Let’s take a look at some of the more commonly known standards to which a wide swath of overall global commerce must adhere:
Center for Information Security (CIS) Benchmarks
These benchmarks are created by the Center for Internet Security (CIS), a not-for-profit organization that helps organizations improve their security and compliance programs. The CIS aims to create community-developed security configuration baselines, or CIS Benchmarks, for IT and Security products. The benchmarks span applications, cloud-computing platforms, operating systems, and much more.
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
The EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) requires the protection of personal data of EU citizens, regardless of the geographic location of the organization or the data. This includes technical and organizational measures that are regularly updated to ensure the amount of security is appropriate to the current level of risk.
Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP)
The Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) is a US federal government initiative that provides a standardized approach to security assessment, authorization, and continuous monitoring for cloud services. FedRAMP’s aim is for companies to leverage modern cloud solutions and technologies safely and securely – particularly where federal information is involved.
Service and Organization Controls (SOC) 2 Reporting
This particular standard comes from the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA), and defines reporting guidelines for how businesses should manage customer data. These reports can help organizations manage vendor supply chains, implement risk management processes, and more. They are aimed at a wide swath of stakeholders and should contain digestible, standardized language.
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) requires businesses that handle patient medical records and other protected health information (PHI) to effectively safeguard that information against security breaches. The HIPAA Security Rule details administrative, technical, and physical controls for electronic PHI (ePHI). Due to the sensitive nature of the data the standard covers, the US government required compliance with the security rule in 2005. Of particular note, HIPAA Part 2 was issued in 2022 and essentially protects “records of the identity, diagnosis, prognosis, or treatment of any patient which are maintained in connection with the performance of any program or activity relating to substance abuse education prevention, training, treatment, rehabilitation, or research, which is conducted, regulated, or directly or indirectly assisted by any department or agency of the United States.”
ISO/IEC 27001
ISO/IEC 27001 is a cloud security compliance management standard jointly published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). ISO/IEC 27001 specifies security management best practices and comprehensive security controls for information security management systems. It is an optional standard that some organizations choose to implement, both to benefit from the best practices it contains and to reassure customers that a comprehensive risk management solution is in place.
To take that last point a bit further, it’s often a good idea for an organization to take a compliance program a step beyond what’s required, instituting additional measures specific to their business needs and unique environment. Building these types of custom guidelines to overlay onto existing compliance programs is a proactive measure that will yield benefits beyond simply remaining compliant to the required regulations.
Challenges of cloud compliance
Despite the flexibility and scalability of cloud environments, maintaining compliance with regulatory standards can be complex. As businesses shift more workloads to the cloud, they often encounter new operational risks, visibility gaps, and evolving technical requirements. Below are some of the most common cloud compliance challenges organizations face.
Poor data visibility
As organizations undergo large-scale cloud transformations, they often lose unified visibility across their cloud assets. This makes it difficult to track where data lives, who has access, and how it’s being used—especially across multi-cloud or hybrid environments.
This lack of visibility can extend to identity and access tracking, increasing the risk of misconfigurations and policy violations. Leveraging asset discovery and data classification tools can help resolve these visibility gaps and reduce compliance risk.
Greater chance of breaches
Misconfigured cloud services are among the leading causes of data breaches. In fact, Gartner estimates that up to 95% of cloud security failures are the result of customer misconfiguration. These errors may be due to human oversight, insecure defaults, or well-intentioned users making systems more accessible than they should be.
Organizations can mitigate this risk by implementing continuous monitoring, misconfiguration detection, and cloud security posture management (CSPM) tools to enforce compliance baselines.
Certifications and attestations
Many organizations must provide third-party auditors with certifications or attestations that demonstrate compliance with frameworks like SOC 2, HIPAA, or FedRAMP. These validations prove that appropriate controls are in place and are functioning effectively.
While certifications may be valid for years, attestations reflect the ongoing nature of compliance, requiring frequent evidence of consistent policy enforcement and secure operations.
Cloud complexity
As businesses rapidly migrate to the cloud, they often struggle to manage legacy systems alongside modern, ephemeral cloud workloads. The result is increased complexity, which can lead to overlooked systems, patching delays, or conflicting compliance requirements.
In some cases, workloads may require exemptions from standard policies, and without a clear exemption mechanism, this can lead to alert fatigue or false positives. DevOps and security teams must collaborate to manage exceptions cleanly and avoid disruptions.
Cloud compliance best practices
To stay ahead of regulatory requirements and reduce compliance risk, organizations should adopt proven cloud security strategies. These best practices help teams build a strong compliance posture while minimizing the risk of human error, misconfiguration, or audit failure.
Encryption
Data encryption transforms readable data into an unreadable format, protecting it both in transit and at rest. Major cloud providers like Google Cloud Platform (GCP) automatically encrypt customer data before it's written to disk. Similarly, cloud security platforms often encrypt credentials using multiple layers of protection—ensuring only authorized users or systems can access them. Encryption is a foundational control for most compliance frameworks, including HIPAA, GDPR, and ISO/IEC 27001.
Principle of least privilege
The principle of least privileged access (LPA) ensures that only users or systems that absolutely need access to a resource can obtain it. Permissions should be tightly scoped based on role, and continuously reviewed or adjusted based on activity.
Modern cloud access management tools often automate these permissions, reducing risk while supporting productivity.
Zero trust
Zero trust is a security model in which no user, device or system is trusted by default—whether inside or outside the network. Every request must be authenticated, authorized, and logged before access is granted.
In a cloud context, zero trust ensures that workloads, endpoints, and users are all verified continuously, helping organizations meet high-assurance compliance standards and reduce lateral movement in the event of a breach.
Well-architected frameworks
Following a well-architected framework helps organizations design cloud environments that are secure, scalable, and compliant. Frameworks such as the AWS Well-Architected Framework provide structured guidance for identifying risk areas, implementing best practices, and aligning with compliance requirements across infrastructure, security, and operations.
Applying these frameworks proactively allows teams to identify misalignments early and reduce the effort required during formal compliance audits.