Who remembers the bad old days when businesses had to store all their data on site? It could be pretty risky. What if the office burned down, or the server failed? Plus, connecting to that data from remote locations, while possible, was clumsy and slow. Then, along came the cloud, and voila! Everything became easy. Maybe, it even became too easy! Think of all that data just “floating around.” Do you even know where it is? Could it be accessed by bad actors? Could it be lost or hijacked?
Cloud safety is an issue that should make businesses sit up and take note. And if they don’t, they stand to leave loopholes that could prove extremely damaging to their reputations or even their ability to do business at all.
Comparatively Safe
Cloud storage is actually pretty safe – safer than your hard drive, for instance. But nothing is 100 percent perfect, and you could be making fatal mistakes that put your data at greater risk. What you can be sure of is that cloud data doesn’t just “float around” as the name seems to imply. It’s actually stored in super-secure data centers with layer upon layer of protection. Just to make sure that you won’t lose your data in the event of a disaster, cloud storage companies usually store several copies and spread the information across data centers.
Your data is also encrypted, but the where, when, and how are important. For example, if your data is only encrypted when it arrives in the cloud, it could be intercepted en route. Sometimes, data is encrypted when it leaves a device, and that’s a slightly stronger form of security. The most secure way to encrypt data is end-to-end encryption which occurs before the data is sent. You’d typically use this for your more sensitive information.
Additional protection can include undelete options and versioning, which stores older versions after changes have been made. And of course, access control, authentication, and so on, from your end help to ensure that only approved individuals can access the data.
So, What’s the Problem?
There are actually several potential problems with securing data stored in the cloud. You could lose data, it could “leak” out, accounts can and have been hijacked, and malicious insiders could leave a trail of destruction. A cloud provider’s API could be compromised leading to attacks from bad actors, or your own admins may fail to encrypt sensitive data.
The truth is that it’s a complex environment and the specific weaknesses that could have bearing on your data could occur in any number of ways and places. But if you’re aware of the need for good cloud security, you can do a lot to reduce possible risks.
Top Tips for Cloud Security
Get help in conducting a risk assessment. Penetration testing probes for vulnerabilities, and knowing the strength of your cybersecurity measures. From your cloud provider’s side, you need to know what contingency plans are in place. Will you still be able to access your data in the event of some disaster? You should also find out whether data security audits are conducted and how often this happens.
Back in your own territory, it’s important for your staff to follow best practices in securing data. They also need to be able to spot threats while avoiding risks. This takes training, and periodic refresher courses will help to keep what they’ve learned uppermost in their minds.
A SecOps team that unites your IT team and data security experts helps to keep things ticking over while keeping your security strong. If you haven’t implemented this concept in your business yet, consider prioritizing it. A SecOps team consists of people with high-level expertise in safeguarding your data, and this function is very frequently outsourced to specialists.
The cloud really does make your data storage safer and more secure than it would be on site, but managing its safety is vital to the survival of your business. Take the necessary steps to limit your risk to an absolute minimum.
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