Data breaches and hacks continue to get a great deal of visibility, and the need to protect your applications and data has never been more important. As businesses like yours leverage the “Cloud”, moving more information & applications into cloud-based services, it’s understandable that managers and executives might be nervous about security in the cloud.
Relax, we’ll answer your questions about cloud computing, moving data into the cloud, and what that means for protecting and de-risking your sensitive information.
Is it More Difficult to Protect Cloud Services Compared to a Local Data Center?
No. Providing you use security best practices (and routine audits), data stored in the cloud is no more vulnerable to hacking than data you store locally. You still need to take precautions for cloud access and train your staff to be vigilant, but a combination of smart authentication, role-based access, vulnerability assessments, and other proven security approaches will significantly reduce risks and attack vectors.
Do Cloud Services have Any Advantages Over Local Data Centers for Security?
Yes. Reputable Cloud providers often provide built-in security backed by resilient infrastructure and technical experts to identify and prevent unauthorized access. Cloud services also integrate with many security tools to make monitoring, managing, and testing your cloud service for flaws fast and straightforward. Additionally, patching vulnerabilities is often more streamlined than if you needed to patch all of your local infrastructure separately.
How Can My Business Make My Cloud Services More Secure?
In addition to standard security best practices, and the methods we outlined in the first question, there are a couple of major steps you can take to protect and secure your data and applications — private cloud and data encryption.
Private Cloud Services
This is a specialized cloud environment that conforms to your internal security & infrastructure policies. For example, being only available to specific access requests, specific devices, IP addresses or internal administration. Compare this with the Public Cloud which is a more general setup, leverages the “lowest common denominator” approach for broadest population use & can typically be accessed from any connected device, provided the user has correct authentication.
Cloud Data Encryption
This service encrypts Cloud Service data. For example, you might choose to have data encrypted when it is “in transit” (being accessed, amended, or sent elsewhere) or when it is “at rest” (stored on the cloud server). This encryption means that the data will be unreadable and unusable for bad agents or hackers, even when they get into your cloud data & its databases.
Do Cloud Services Have Other Benefits for Data Security?
Yes. Security isn’t just about protecting data from hackers, it’s also about availability, accessibility, and backup. Cloud services provide several disaster recovery options while maintaining security policies that allow you to backup your cloud data and provide a path to easily restore it in the event of a “worst case scenario,” helping you to maintain business continuity and confidence in your security posture.
The combination of robust cloud security, with other cloud benefits like availability, scalability, and resilience makes a cloud environment an excellent choice for your IT infrastructure. We’re experts in cloud providers and cloud security, so get in touch today to learn how we can secure your cloud environments.
