# What is Hybrid Cloud Security?

> Hybrid cloud security is the protection of a cloud environment composed of two or more distinct deployment models — such as private and public clouds — that remain separate but are connected to support data or application portability.

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## Content

It governs the trust boundaries, identities, traffic, data movement, operations, and responsibilities created when those cloud environments work together.

Industry usage sometimes calls any on-premises and public-cloud combination hybrid cloud. Under NIST’s narrower definition, each component is cloud infrastructure; the term hybrid IT is clearer when conventional systems are included. Connection does not create common policy, identity, telemetry, or availability behavior.

### Key points

- **Boundary design:** Inventory every inter-environment link and broker, authenticate endpoints and workloads, restrict permitted flows, protect routing and name resolution, and avoid treating either side as implicitly trusted.
- **Control translation:** Define equivalent intent for identities, data, network policy, configuration, logging, and change control, then use each environment’s native mechanisms and responsibility model.
- **Data and resilience:** Track data storage, processing, backups, and logs; govern keys and transfers; and test outages, dependency failures, recovery, and disconnection.
- **Important limitation:** A unified console or private connection does not make separate clouds one security boundary. Policy translation can lose meaning, shared identity or management can concentrate risk, and an unsafe bridge may expose both environments. Data location, provider access, and contractual responsibilities still differ.

### Related terms

[Multi-cloud security](<https://yellowcube.eu/glossary/multi-cloud-security/>) · [Public cloud security](<https://yellowcube.eu/glossary/public-cloud-security/>) · [Cloud network security](<https://yellowcube.eu/glossary/cloud-network-security/>) · [Identity and access management (IAM)](<https://yellowcube.eu/glossary/identity-and-access-management/>) · [Hybrid IT](<https://yellowcube.eu/glossary/hybrid-it/>)

### Sources

[NIST SP 800-145: The NIST Definition of Cloud Computing](https://csrc.nist.gov/pubs/sp/800/145/final) · [NIST SP 800-146: Cloud Computing Synopsis and Recommendations](https://csrc.nist.gov/pubs/sp/800/146/final) · [Cloud Security Alliance: Secure Connection Requirements of Hybrid Cloud](https://cloudsecurityalliance.org/artifacts/secure-connection-requirements-of-hybrid-cloud)

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