Lightning Talk

Guardrails for Cloud Spending: Securing Educational Institutions from Overspending and Account Compromise: Securing Educational Institutions from Overspending and Account Compromise

In this lightning talk I will explain how we at SURF have set up house rules for the use of public clouds by educational institutions. SURF is the underwriter for the public cloud contracts and for that reason we require every institution to have a certain basic level of cybersecurity, especially in their public cloud environments.

As the adoption of public cloud services in research and education environments increases, it is crucial to have clear policies and measures in place to effectively manage costs and prevent unauthorized spending.

I will discuss how proactive measures such as budget alerts, access control and policies can be implemented to limit the risk of users or malicious parties abusing cloud accounts.