# What is Public Cloud Security?

> Public cloud security is the protection of data, identities, applications, configurations, and customer-controlled resources used in a public cloud deployment.

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## Content

In the NIST model, the cloud infrastructure is provisioned for open use by the general public, operated by a cloud provider, and located on the provider’s premises. “Public” describes who may subscribe, not whether each customer resource is internet-accessible.

The provider operates the service, but customer responsibility varies across infrastructure, platform, and software services. Customers must identify inherited, shared, configurable, and unavailable controls; protect tenant administration; and assess provider isolation, resilience, data handling, support, and incident obligations.

### Key points

- **Service selection:** Match data sensitivity, availability, location, portability, legal, and recovery needs to the provider, service model, contract, evidence, and controls.
- **Tenant operation:** Apply strong administrative authentication, least privilege, defaults, exposure controls, encryption and key decisions, configuration review, logging, backup, and incident procedures.
- **Data and resilience:** Track copies, subprocessors, regions, deletion behavior, quotas, dependencies, and exit formats; plan for account compromise, disruption, and provider incidents.
- **Important limitation:** Provider certification or secure infrastructure does not establish that a customer tenant, identity policy, application, or dataset is secure. Public cloud is not inherently public-facing or less isolated than private infrastructure. Private endpoints still depend on provider controls and customer configuration.

### Related terms

[Cloud security](<https://yellowcube.eu/glossary/cloud-security/>) · [Cloud security architecture](<https://yellowcube.eu/glossary/cloud-security-architecture/>) · [Cloud service models: IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS](<https://yellowcube.eu/glossary/cloud-service-models-iaas-paas-and-saas/>) · [Virtual private cloud (VPC)](<https://yellowcube.eu/glossary/virtual-private-cloud/>) · [Cloud security posture management (CSPM)](<https://yellowcube.eu/glossary/cloud-security-posture-management/>)

### Sources

[NIST SP 800-145: The NIST Definition of Cloud Computing](https://csrc.nist.gov/pubs/sp/800/145/final) · [NIST SP 800-144: Security and Privacy in Public Cloud Computing](https://csrc.nist.gov/pubs/sp/800/144/final) · [CISA Cloud Security Technical Reference Architecture v2](https://www.cisa.gov/sites/default/files/2023-02/cloud_security_technical_reference_architecture_2.pdf)

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