The tremendous benefits of cloud migration have more and more businesses convinced to move their data and assets to the cloud. But a crucial part of this move is cloud security. And practical measures help companies cut risks and maintain the integrity, privacy, and availability of their cloud assets.
Moving organizational assets to the cloud without proper security measures comes with serious risks. Businesses across the globe face threats that are damaging to their operations, finances, and reputation.
Data breaches, phishing attacks, ransomware, malware, and social engineering have become popular keywords in everyday business news. Such attacks can lead to financial and operational losses and sabotage a business’s reputation.
What is Cloud Security?
In our earlier posts, we highlighted the various advantages cloud migration provides. We have also discussed different methods and strategies for cloud migration that an organization can use.
Businesses need to take serious cloud security measures to complete successful cloud migration. Cloud security is defined as a set of policies, practices, and technologies deployed to protect data, applications, and infrastructure on the cloud from cyber threats.
Cloud security measures are put in place to ensure data security and privacy, manage and enable fair access to company data and assets, authenticate employees and customers, and maintain compliance with industrial, national, and global business policies.
Why is Cloud Security Important?
Across SMBs and large enterprises, the increased adoption of cloud computing and cloud infrastructure in modern business has made cloud security services critical for data privacy, compliance, and business operations.
Continuous monitoring, encryption, access management, and threat management are effective ways for businesses to prevent unauthorized access, theft, and other threats.
A study by McAfee found that 83% of organizations that use cloud services have faced cloud-related security incidents. And according to a report by IBM, the average data breach cost is $ 3.86 million. Investing in cloud security services helps organizations address such concerns and reduce the chances of legal, financial, regulatory, and compliance risks.
Essential Cloud Security Measure to Take
Private Cloud:
While both private and public cloud offer secure platforms, private clouds gives organizations more control over their data, which can help achieve greater levels of security. This can be crucial when businesses are dealing with highly sensitive data.
Some leading names in the private cloud are Oracle, IBM, Dell, and HPE. However, organizations must first analyze the sensitivity of the data before investing in a private cloud, as it can be very costly compared to public cloud platforms such as AWS and Google.
Data Encryption:
Encryption is one of the most crucial aspects of cloud security. Both public and private cloud platforms offer different levels of encryption, depending on the requirement.
Encryption helps businesses ensure that data is only accessible to authorized users. The best cloud security practices recommend that all data be encrypted both at rest and in transit.
With data encryption in place, companies can make sure that stolen data is unusable to hackers. In case of a breach, this allows companies time to warn customers and take the necessary steps to protect information.
Access Control:
Under a proper security system, businesses can manage who has access to what at a granular level. Such control over the availability of data and assets prevents data theft, leakage, and loss because of the human element in the process.
A 2019 survey by DivvyCloud found that 74% organizations are concerned by the security of public cloud. Managing access at all levels also helps with real-time monitoring, which can alert and prevent unusual or suspicious activities.
Password Management:
Data backups are extremely helpful in the event of data breaches, loss, and theft. The best practices for data backup recommend daily backups to recover data loss caused by hardware or software failures.
A solid data backup strategy includes cloud, local, and offline backups. While organizations can choose one of these options, they should ideally have multiple backups in place.
Data Backups and Recovery:
Based on a 2019 study by Sophos, 42% of organizations have experienced data theft from a public cloud provider. Passwords, by design, are one of the most vulnerable components in cybersecurity. Businesses can improve security by creating policies for strong passwords and multi-factor authentication.
Password managers, single sign-on, biometric authentication, phone/app-based authentication, and hardware keys can make a difference. And recently, more and more organizations are incorporating these technologies to ensure secure passwords for internal and external users.
Employee Training:
When moving to the cloud, businesses should train their employees in best cybersecurity practices and how to minimize risks.
Hackers commonly use social engineering and phishing attacks to compromise employee accounts. This allows them to access sensitive information about a business and its users.
However, a cyberattack can come in many forms, and ideally, employees should be able to identify and take appropriate measures against such attacks.
Benefits of Cloud Security Measures in Business
The right approach to cloud security offers key benefits such as increased operational flexibility, the scope for scalability, reduced costs, compliance, and risk management. According to a study by IBM, businesses that invest in cloud security services can minimize the risks of security-related incidents by 50%.
With cloud security, businesses can benefit from the following:
Data Security:
Cloud security helps organizations secure their own and customer data against unauthorized access, theft, or loss. With effective measures in place, organizational and user data is protected against DDoS and other threats.
Leading cloud security providers offer enterprise-level security with appropriate encryption, automatic backups, data recovery, and Enhanced Disaster Recovery. This helps businesses reduce downtimes and protect against tampered or damaged data.
Real-time Monitoring:
Based on a 2020 study by IBM, it takes businesses an average of 207 days to identify and contain a cloud data breach. And in many cases, serious security threats can cause lasting damage in this duration.
However, with real-time monitoring, businesses can quickly identify and respond to security threats. This is helpful, especially with sensitive data, where swift action against unusual or suspicious activities raises alerts or locks access to protect user information.
Cost-effectiveness:
Another benefit of cloud security is that it removes the need for costly on-premise infrastructures. Due to this, businesses can save hardware, software, and maintenance costs.
In addition, cloud security technologies are scalable and can be implemented per the needs and demands of operations and business structure, further optimizing the total costs.
Compliance:
Regulations such as GDPR and HIPAA are applied to businesses in specific regions or industries. Such regulations aim to protect the data of both internal and external users.
Businesses that fail to comply with such regulations can face legal, financial, and regulatory challenges, resulting in short and long-term damage. Proper cloud security measures are essential for businesses to comply with these regulations.
Conclusion
With proper cloud security measures, businesses can fully take advantage of moving their data, applications, and assets to the cloud. And as cloud infrastructures become more complex, there are more chances of damaging consequences that harm the outcome and growth of a business.
Thus, organizations must implement strong cybersecurity and cloud security measures that secure their assets and protect their customers’ data.
Ready to begin? Connect with our experts today to start with a secure cloud migration for your business.
