Ingress vs. Egress in the Cloud

Understanding the concepts of egress and ingress in cloud security iscritical for managing network traffic. While these terms just mean “exit” and “entrance” in general, in network security, they are separate and essential areas that network teams focus on for data security and traffic management.

Defining Egress vs. Ingress

What is Egress?

Egress (“exit”) refers to the flow of data moving out of a private network into the public internet or another external network. Monitoring and filtering egress traffic is very important in network operations, especially in cloud environments, where controlling the movement of data helps organizations maintain security, for example to protect against unauthorized exfiltration.

What is Ingress?

Ingress (“entrance”) refers to the flow of data into a private network from an external source, typically the public internet. In cloud computing, managing ingress traffic means keeping threat actors, malware, unauthorized users, and any other unwanted visitors out of your network.

Ingress & Egress in the Cloud

Egress from Cloud Networks

In cloud environments, egress traffic involves data transmission from a controlled, internal network space—for example, a data center or cloud infrastructure—to the wider internet. This movement requires careful handling, particularly through network address translation (NAT), to ensure secure and authorized data transmission.

Firewalls are also critical in monitoring and allowing this outbound traffic, particularly in response to internal requests or established network sessions. See the picture below for reference.

Egress:

Ingress into Cloud Environments

In cloud environments, ingress involves external traffic attempting to access the private network. This can include unsolicited external data packets and requests that are not responses to internal actions. Firewalls are essential in these scenarios because they block or scrutinize incoming traffic, using security policies and configurations are in place to only allow certain types of ingress traffic into the network. See the picture below for reference.

Ingress:

Want to learn more about ingress and egress in cloud networking?

• Discover how egress security has evolved and why you should care.
• Read more about virtual vs. cloud firewalls.
• Explore the egress security gap in cloud network security.