The shift to multi-cloud infrastructure has become one of the defining technology decisions for Indian enterprises over the last several years.
Organizations run workloads across multiple public cloud platforms, combine managed services from different providers, and integrate cloud environments with on-premises infrastructure in increasingly complex ways. The flexibility this provides is real and so is the data security challenge it creates. Many organizations approach multi-cloud data security with strategies designed for simpler environments, and they discover the inadequacy of those strategies only after something goes wrong.
The Visibility Problem at the Heart of Multi-Cloud Data Security
The most fundamental challenge of multi-cloud data security is visibility. In a multi-cloud environment, data moves across platforms, is processed by different services, is stored in multiple locations, and is accessed through a variety of interfaces. Understanding where sensitive data actually resides at any given time is genuinely difficult.
Many organizations discover, when they conduct a thorough data discovery exercise, that sensitive data is in places they did not expect. Common findings include:
- A developer copied production data to a test environment for debugging and never removed it.
- A business team set up a storage bucket to share files externally and left it publicly accessible by default.
- A cloud service evaluated and then not adopted still holds data from the evaluation period.
These are not hypothetical scenarios. They surface regularly in cloud security assessments. Without comprehensive visibility into where data is and what its sensitivity classification is, security controls cannot be applied appropriately. You cannot protect what you cannot see.
Inconsistent Security Controls Across Cloud Platforms
Each major cloud platform has its own security model, its own tools, and its own configuration requirements. Azure, AWS, and Google Cloud all provide capable security services, but they work differently, use different terminology, and require different expertise to operate effectively.
In practice, most organizations do neither consistently. Security teams experienced primarily with one platform apply their expertise where they can and leave gaps elsewhere. The result is an uneven security posture where the same type of data, in the same risk category, is well protected in one cloud and poorly protected in another.
Embee Software has worked with enterprises across India to assess multi-cloud security postures and consistently finds that the platforms receiving less attention during initial cloud adoption carry the most significant gaps. Addressing this requires a platform-agnostic strategy that sets consistent standards and then applies them across all environments, regardless of which cloud provider is involved. organizations running workloads on Azure Cloud alongside other providers particularly benefit from a unified standards approach, as the temptation to rely on Azure's native tooling alone can leave non-Azure workloads under-protected.
Identity and Access Management Complexity in Multi-Cloud
Access to management in a single cloud environment is challenging enough. In a multi-cloud environment, the challenge multiplies. Each platform has its own identity model, its own roles and permissions structure, and its own mechanisms for federating with enterprise identity systems.
Common problems that Embee's assessments surface include:
- Over-privileged service accounts are set up for convenience and never tightened.
- Inconsistent enforcement of multi-factor authentication across platforms.
- Identity federation configurations that create unintended access paths.
- No centralized visibility into who has access to across the multi-cloud estate.
In the context of data security specifically, access control failures are among the most consequential. Data that is well classified and well encrypted but accessible to anyone who can authenticate to the platform is not meaningfully protected. The access layer must be as carefully managed as the data layer itself. Organizations that have moved workloads as part of a broader Cloud Infra Migration often inherit access configurations that were set up for speed rather than security, and these require deliberate remediation.
Data Security and the Limits of Encryption
Encryption is often presented as the solution to cloud data security concerns, and it is certainly a necessary control. However, encryption alone does not constitute a data security strategy, and misplaced confidence in encryption creates its own risks.
The protection of encryption provides depends entirely on key management. If encryption keys are stored in the same environment as the data they protect, or if access to key management systems is poorly controlled, encryption provides far less protection than organizations typically assume. Cloud providers offer key management services but using them correctly — including understanding the shared responsibility model and where the provider's responsibility ends and the customer's begins requires expertise and sustained attention.
Organizations running SAP on Azure should pay particular attention here, as SAP workloads frequently handle sensitive financial and operational data. The combination of SAP's own encryption capabilities and Azure's key management services must be configured deliberately, not left in default settings.
The Shared Responsibility Model and Where It Goes Wrong
Every major cloud provider operates on a shared responsibility model that defines what security obligations the provider handles and what the customer must handle. The general principle is that the provider secures the underlying infrastructure, and the customer is responsible for securing what runs on top of it.
This model is well documented, but it is consistently misunderstood in practice. Organizations assume that because they are running in the cloud, the cloud provider is handling their data security. They are not. Data classification, access control, encryption key management, monitoring, and incident response are all customer responsibilities in virtually every cloud security model.
Organizations that have not explicitly owned these responsibilities have gaps, whether they know it or not. Robust Cloud Security programs account for this division of responsibility explicitly, assigning internal ownership to each customer-side obligation rather than allowing accountability to remain ambiguous. Organizations running hybrid environments face additional complexity here, and a well-designed Hybrid Cloud strategy must address shared responsibility https://embee.co.in/solutions/cloud-security-services/across both cloud and on-premises layers.
Building a Coherent Multi-Cloud Data Security Programs
A coherent approach to multi-cloud data security starts with knowing what data exists and where it lives. Data discovery and classification should be the first investment, not an afterthought. Without this foundation, every subsequent security control is applied without a complete picture of what it is protecting.
From there, consistent security standards must be defined and applied across all cloud platforms. This does not mean using the same tools everywhere that is often not practical given platform differences. It means defining the outcomes required and implementing controls that achieve those outcomes in each platform's native environment, supplemented by cross-platform tooling where that adds value.
The key disciplines that must be addressed with equal rigor across every environment include:
- Access management: Centralized visibility and consistent enforcement of least-privilege principles.
- Encryption and key management: Keys managed separately from the data they protect, with tightly controlled access to key management systems.
- Monitoring and alerting: Integrated SIEM / SOAR capabilities that surface threats across all platforms rather than treating each cloud in isolation.
- Incident response and recovery: A tested Disaster Recovery plan that accounts for multi-cloud data assets, not just on-premises systems.
Embee Software works with enterprises to build and implement data security programs that are designed for multi-cloud realities from the ground up. Complementing a security program with Managed IT Services ensures that the operational disciplines required to maintain security posture are sustained beyond the initial implementation.
Frequently Asked Questions
What makes data security in a multi-cloud environment harder than in a single cloud?
The primary challenges are visibility across platforms, inconsistent security models and tools between providers, multiplied identity and access management complexity, and the need to apply consistent data security standards across environments that work quite differently from each other. Each gap in consistency represents a potential exposure point.
What is the shared responsibility model for cloud security?
The shared responsibility model defines what security obligations are handled by the cloud provider and what must be handled by the customer. Providers typically secure the underlying infrastructure, while customers are responsible for data classification, access control, encryption management, and monitoring within their cloud environments. Misunderstanding this division is one of the most common sources of security gaps in cloud deployments.
How should Organizations approach data discovery in multi-cloud environments?
Data discovery should begin with automated scanning tools that identify where data exists across cloud storage services, databases, and applications. Findings should be combined with process interviews to capture data flows that automated tools may not detect. The output should be a data map that informs classification and access control decisions across the entire multi-cloud estate.
How does Embee Software help with multi-cloud data security?
Embee Software provides multi-cloud security assessments, data discovery and classification programs, access management architecture, and implementation of security controls across cloud platforms. As a Microsoft Gold and SAP partner, Embee helps Organizations build data security programs that are consistent across their entire cloud estate rather than strong in some places and weak in others. Organizations can also benefit from Embee's Cloud Managed Services to maintain and evolve their security posture over time.
Your Data Is Spread Across Clouds- Do You Know Where It Is and Who Can Access It?
Embee Software, a Microsoft Frontier partner, helps Indian enterprises build unified multi-cloud data security programs that close visibility gaps, enforce consistent controls, and give security teams the confidence that every cloud environment is protected to the same standard.
