Security risks of cloud migration

Editor's Note: This article was originally written by Gilad Maayan. Other contributors helped update it for accuracy in 2026.

As organizations increasingly move mission-critical systems to the cloud, concerns about the security risks associated with cloud migration are growing.

Cloud security is now well understood, and there are well-established tools and methodologies for protecting cloud workloads. However, these security methods can break down during the transition from on-premises to cloud environments, leading to catastrophic breaches or data exposure.

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What is cloud migration? 

Cloud migration involves moving applications, data and other digital assets from an on-premises data center to the cloud. These might be custom-built applications or applications that the organizations licensed from a third-party vendor. There are several approaches to cloud migration, including: 

• Moving applications as is — this is known as “lift and shift” 
• Making small changes to applications to enable their move to the cloud 
• Rebuilding or refactoring applications to make them more suitable for a cloud environment 
• Switching from legacy applications to new applications that support the cloud or are provided by cloud vendors 
• Building new applications for the cloud is known as “cloud-native development” 

What are the key benefits of cloud migration? 

The overall goal of most cloud migrations is to gain the benefits of the cloud — hosting applications and data in a highly efficient IT environment that can improve parameters like cost, performance and security. 

Key motivations for migrating to the cloud include elastic scalability, a desire to optimize costs or switch from a capital expenditure to an operating expenses model and a need for new technologies, services or features only available in a cloud environment. 

Perhaps more importantly, cloud computing frees corporate IT teams from the burden of managing uptime and enhances the organization’s ability to deploy new services and adapt to changing business requirements. 

Key considerations for cloud migration projects 

A primary concern in migration projects is which applications to migrate. Consider moving an application to the cloud if it fits one or more of the following criteria: 

• The application does not require low latency when communicating with on-premise resources. 
• There are no specific security or compliance requirements for keeping the application on-premises. 
• The application is subject to fluctuating loads over time, which can make the elasticity of the cloud more attractive. 
• Prioritize non-business-critical applications to ensure your first migrations are successful. As you gain more experience, consider migrating your business-critical apps. 

Consider which deployment and pricing model is most suitable for your workloads: 

• Deploying applications in the public cloud provides unlimited scalability and a pay-as-you-go model. 
• Building a private cloud incurs a high upfront cost but offers greater scalability, enhanced security and lower operating costs. 

Finally, when deploying to the public cloud, choose your provider: 

• The top three cloud providers — AWS, Microsoft and Google — offer equivalent services for most use cases. 
• Niche cloud providers exist that can support use cases and may offer competitive pricing or other differentiators. 
• Many companies adopt a multi-cloud approach, deploying different workloads to different cloud providers based on cost and technical suitability. 

Security risks of cloud migration 

Cloud migration requires careful planning because it is vulnerable to several types of attacks. During migration, sensitive data is transferred, making it susceptible to attack. In addition, at various stages of a migration project, attackers can gain access to unsecured dev, test or production environments. 

Plan cloud migration efforts in anticipation of the following threats: 

• API vulnerabilities: Application programming interfaces (APIs) act as communication channels between environments. APIs must be secured throughout the cloud migration process. 
• Blind spots: Transitioning to the cloud means relinquishing control over certain aspects of your operation. Before migrating, check what security your cloud provider offers and how to complement it with third-party security solutions. 
• Compliance requirements: Ensure that your target cloud environment supports the required compliance standards. This includes compliance certifications by the cloud provider and procedures carried out by the organization to ensure cloud workloads, data and access are secure. All these can and will be audited as part of compliance requirements. 
• Uncontrolled growth: Cloud migration is not a one-time process. After migrating applications to the cloud, the organization will likely add more resources, consume new cloud services and add more applications. It is very common to start using additional SaaS applications once they are already running in the cloud. These new services and applications must be adequately secured, creating a significant operational challenge. 
• Data loss: Cloud migration involves data transfer. It is essential to back up in case of errors in the migration process. All data transfer occurs over encrypted channels, with careful management of encryption keys. 
• AI and machine learning security considerations: AI and machine learning systems rely on consistent, uncorrupted data to function correctly. During a cloud migration, it’s essential to ensure the destination database, lake or repository encrypts data at rest. It has adequate security measures, such as next-generation firewalls, in place to prevent unauthorized access. 

Research highlights cloud migration security challenges 

In a recent study, researchers found some significant security issues associated with cloud migrations. One of the key concerns is data corruption. About 23% of cloud migration projects introduce at least some data corruption during data transfer. Seven percent of these issues result in significant business impacts, including security problems. For instance, data scientists discovered issues with: 

• Foreign key constraints where keys needed validation and weren’t able to get it post-migration 
• Temporal inconsistencies, which can impact the timestamps of threat detection systems, as well as the automated functions of threat mitigation solutions 
• Inconsistencies in financial records, which can camouflage attempts at financial data theft 
• Disruptions to operational workflows, which can include security workflows that depend on operational data for analysis and automated response 

5 ways to mitigate cloud migration security risks 

Here are a few best practices that can help improve security during and after cloud migrations: 

1. Establish a set of security standards and criteria: Work with compliance, IT and development teams to develop basic security standards. At a minimum, these standards should cover access control, IaC templates, cloud workload vulnerability management and secure DevOps procedures. 
2. Assign dedicated staff to identity and access management (IAM): Identity management is critical and highly dynamic in the cloud. Assign dedicated staff to ensure IAM is appropriately managed and maintained over time. 
3. Enforce multi-factor authentication: At all stages of cloud migration, it’s necessary to require multi-factor authentication, including within development environments. This reduces the risk of unauthorized access to administrator accounts and critical assets. 
4. Enable cloud-wide logging: All major cloud service providers offer centralized logging services (e.g., AWS CloudTrail). Leverage this feature throughout your migration and send logs to a central collector for analysis. Use these logs to establish a baseline of system behavior during the migration, enabling easier detection and investigation of security incidents. 
5. Use cloud security posture management (CSPM): CSPM solutions monitor cloud systems for misconfigurations and, in some cases, can immediately remediate them. This is particularly important for tracking various cloud assets throughout different stages of migration and ensuring that critical data and assets have the appropriate security settings. 

Master cloud migration security

Cloud migration opens the door to greater scalability, cost efficiency and modern infrastructure, but the transition itself is one of the most security-vulnerable moments an organization will face. API exposures, data corruption, compliance gaps and identity management challenges can all derail a migration if security isn't prioritized from day one. However, with the right standards, tools and team in place, these risks are entirely manageable.

Turning that knowledge into practical skill is where training makes the difference. Infosec's cloud security courses give you hands-on experience with cloud penetration testing, security architecture and cloud service provider security tools, so you're prepared to protect workloads at every stage of the journey.