To protect business continuity and reputation, CIOs and CISOs must agree that trust is a design feature, not an afterthought. 

Enterprise cloud infrastructure security doesn’t happen casually. It’s only achieved as a deliberate, engineered outcome. As Gopal Padinjaruveetil — VP & CISO of the Auto Club Group of a 122-year-old American Automobile Association (AAA) — says, it’s “secure by design, not by chance.” 

That’s the essence of security by design: Embedding security principles from the start and sustaining them throughout the system’s life. 

Design Time and Runtime 

Gopal notes that security by design begins at design time, where architecture decisions set the foundation for resilience at runtime. He compares catching a vulnerability during design to erasing a line on paper, whereas discovering it in production may require a figurative sledgehammer. It’s far more costly, disruptive and potentially damaging to customer trust. Industry data suggests fixes in production issues can cost 30–100 times more than resolving them earlier in the development lifecycle. 

He also cautions that even the best designs aren’t perfect, and that all operational environments inevitably evolve. Continuous monitoring, detection and rapid ‘mutation’ (fixing flaws before they spread) are essential to stay ahead of threats and sustain trust. 

New projects (greenfield) offer the widest range of security design options, from policy enforcement to architectural layout. Existing systems (brownfield) are constrained by prior design decisions, but they’re far from a lost cause. Through reverse engineering, security teams can identify weaknesses, strengthen controls and align with modern standards and best practices. Depending on the approach, embedding secure by design principles can be challenging, but the costs and consequences of failing to do so are far greater. 

The operative word is value. In both scenarios, the adoption of secure-by-design principles yields value. Greenfield initiatives achieve it through comprehensive design, and brownfield overhauls achieve it through targeted enhancements that identify and address weaknesses. 

Automation and Hygiene: The Security Multiplier 

Cloud technology has revolutionized IT agility over the past five years. Infrastructure that once took months to provision can now be deployed in minutes. However, this speed comes with a trade-off: An often misplaced trust that the organization’s cloud environment is inherently secure by default. 

Cloud security operates on a shared responsibility model. Providers secure the underlying infrastructure, but customers must secure configurations, data and access. Despite the promotion of best practices, misconfigurations remain a leading cause of cloud breaches.  

Even with a secure baseline, configuration drift can erode defenses if hygiene is not maintained. 

Good security hygiene, whether in the cloud or on-prem, requires vigilance. Automation can be a force multiplier — detecting and remediating issues before they escalate — to maintain secure baselines, thereby freeing teams to focus on higher-value work such as supporting innovation. 

It’s also important to accelerate AI and non-AI cloud provisioning with secure-by-design hyperautomation. Solutions such as the Invi Grid intelligent cloud are resourced to help build a secure, well-architected cloud day zero. 

Culture, Leadership and Shared Goals 

Security by design is as much about people as it is about technology. CTOs, CISOs, CIOs and business unit leaders must work toward shared organizational goals, including balancing the speed of new services’ delivery with the protection of the organization’s assets and trust. 

That shared receptivity to security typically involves a culture change, which is often the hardest part. People resist change for as many reasons as there are stakeholders: Turf protection, the drive to roll out new services — both to preserve and advance market share and career prospects — and even a fear of redundancy or uncertainty.  

Overcoming this requires leadership commitment, transparency about why change is needed and mandating security initiatives tied to the organization’s mission. When security is framed as enabling the business’s larger goals — including delivering peace of mind and maintaining trust — resistance diminishes. 

In the end, security by design is about trust. Whether customers are sharing personal data, making financial transactions or depending on a service in an emergency, they expect that trust will be honored. 

By making security a designed-in feature rather than an afterthought, organizations can protect trust, maintain agility and create lasting value — no matter where they are in their infrastructure journey.