Cloud Security Best Practices for 2026

Essential security patterns for modern cloud infrastructure.

Identity and Access

**Least privilege**: Start with zero permissions, add as needed

**MFA everywhere**: No exceptions for production access

**Service accounts**: Use workload identity, not static keys

**RBAC**: Role-based access with regular audits

**Zero trust**: Verify every request

**Network policies**: Restrict pod-to-pod communication

**Private endpoints**: Keep databases off public internet

**TLS everywhere**: Encrypt in transit

Never store secrets in code. Use:

AWS Secrets Manager / Azure Key Vault / GCP Secret Manager

Sealed Secrets for Kubernetes

Rotation policies (90 days maximum)

CloudTrail / Activity Log for audit trails

GuardDuty / Security Center for threat detection

Policy as Code (OPA, Checkov)

Regular penetration testing

Have a plan:

Detection (SIEM, alerts)

Containment (isolate compromised resources)

Investigation (preserve logs)

Recovery (rollback, patch)

Post-mortem (blameless)