Businesses reliant on cloud technology face many security risks, including data exposure. Luckily, these can be minimized through employing an effective security strategy and selecting a trustworthy cloud provider.
Employees should receive training on cybersecurity best practices, and organizations should conduct regular security audits and assessments to detect misconfigurations that could lead to data breaches.
Not Encrypting Data
Data stored in the cloud can be vulnerable to security risks and theft if it isn’t encrypted during transit across the Internet, making encryption an essential precaution for businesses storing sensitive information or business-critical applications in this manner.
Private individuals securing their cloud access primarily rely on general data protection measures – like secure passwords – while considering where their provider has servers located and its terms of usage.
Companies face an even more complex set of challenges: rising cybersecurity threats and stringent compliance regulations require them to secure data in all environments where it resides or moves across different environments.
Not Using End-to-End Data Encryption
Utilizing encryption when transmitting information over the Internet helps safeguard it against prying eyes and tampering; without it, this would be equivalent to sending personal details on postcards for all to see and steal.
Implement granular access controls and update them as roles and responsibilities change within your organization, to decrease the chance of any unauthorized changes and possible phishing attacks.
Final steps include adopting strong authentication practices such as multi factor authentication (MFA) and password managers. Reusing easily-guessed passwords across multiple accounts or creating passwords without thought can leave your business vulnerable to unauthorized access and leave its data vulnerable.
Not Using Access Control
CISOs often harbor doubts regarding cloud security, questioning whether its platform can keep their data safe enough. With appropriate policies and practices in place, however, cloud storage can indeed be safe.
Access privilege restrictions may be inconvenient, but it’s far safer than providing hackers access. Encryption is essential; make sure that you create backup copies of encryption keys regularly to prevent hacking attacks.
Proper cloud logging can also aid with this endeavor, and integrating logs into a SIEM tool for centralized monitoring and alerting can help detect misconfigurations or any vulnerabilities that arise in your infrastructure.
Not Using Multi-Factor Authentication
Stealing data can be an easy and lucrative source of revenue for hackers, especially stolen passwords that provide them with direct entry to company networks – making cloud security systems all the more essential.
Although cloud providers are responsible for upholding the integrity of the infrastructure they manage, users still have an obligation to educate themselves about safe use and ensure their devices and networks remain secure. Multi-factor authentication can protect accounts by blocking attackers at sign-in; adaptive MFA can use contextual and behavioral data to assess risk – this way, protecting against geolocation or remote network connection timeout threats.
Not Monitoring Remote Access Users
Businesses utilizing cloud storage often entrust sensitive and business-critical information to it – including customer records, financial details, and intellectual property. If there is ever an attack or system failure, it is crucial that this data be adequately protected, or else extended downtime could result in damaged customer relations and financial losses for the enterprise.
Use of granular access permissions, along with regular auditing of security protocols can help businesses to mitigate these risks. Furthermore, companies must implement digital offboarding processes for inactive employee accounts to prevent these accounts being used maliciously in future. By following these tips on cloud security for business operations, businesses can strengthen their overall security posture and avoid costly attacks on their systems.
Not Having a Backup Strategy
Backups are an indispensable way of safeguarding data. To maximize their protection, find a backup-as-a-service solution with redundancy and the 3-2-1 rule built-in. Furthermore, solutions should be sought that keep backup environments separate from primary networks to avoid malware or ransomware easily breaching and corrupting backup copies.
Backup data sources are just as vulnerable to unauthorized access as original sources and require an Internet connection for accessibility. To prevent losing backups due to single points of failure, such as public cloud infrastructure hosting production data, the 3-2-1 rule ensures no single backup source ever becomes unusable or lost due to its single point of failure – an effective strategy against ransomware extortion attacks.
