Storing your data in the cloud has obvious benefits for businesses and consumers alike: for only a fraction of the price of alternatives, any organization or end users can reduce their energy consumption, free up their physical storage, and make accessing, organizing, and sorting their data easier than ever. In an age of constant security breaches and ransomware attacks, however, ensuring your data remains safe and secure in the cloud is an increasingly complex task, and recent high profile data breaches have shaken the confidence many people had in their existing security measures. But fear not: there are many simple and easy to implement steps you can take to keep your data safe without sacrificing the benefits that make cloud storage so appealing.
Identify and Evaluate Threats Specific to Your Data
Businesses and consumers all have unique security needs. No single security solution will be applicable for all users, but having an idea of the threats your data faces and their level of severity will make the process of choosing an appropriate solution easier.
Environmental hazards malicious software, and security breaches are not unique to cloud storage, but their impact is outsize on the safety of data stored in the cloud as opposed to data stored via alternative methods. All cloud storage vendors approach security differently, and it is important to verify that your chosen vendor employs security protocols that match the sensitivity of the data you store. Ensure that your vendor stores information redundantly -- by storing backups of information and keeping backups and data centers isolated -- to maximize protection from potential weather hazards or other hardware threats. Likewise, it is important to verify that enhanced security methods -- including advanced and internal firewalls, encryption, event logging, and intrusion detection -- are in place, actively monitored, and regularly maintained.
What is a Cloud Access Security Broker?
A Cloud Access Security Broker is software that examines traffic between a cloud server and the user's device, allowing IT teams to identify problematic activity, extend the reach of already in place security protocols, and evaluate all cloud apps currently in use. The information and additional protection they provide can give IT professionals valuable insight into active threats against their data in the cloud and help mitigate potential problems before they arise.
CASB solutions cover a number of different scenarios, which makes them an increasingly invaluable tool for organizations looking to keep their data safe. Security Brokers utilize the APIs already in place at most cloud service providers and give IT teams the ability to authenticate and encrypt all information going to or from the cloud, as well as additional tools for event logging and real-time security protocol enforcement. Cloud Access Security Broker 2.0 solutions take this concept a step further, integrating directly into the user's already in place security infrastructure to provide additional endpoint management and threat protection while ensuring coverage remains comprehensive, consistent, and accessible across all platforms.
Countering Internal Threats
Mitigating external security concerns, while essential to keeping your data safe, only does so much if proper internal security measures are actively observed. For organizations and users alike, it is important to ensure that anyone with access to data on the cloud uses strong passwords, avoids phishing scams, and understands the importance of these protocols in keeping data safe. It is easy for computers to get viruses when certain safety measures are not taken when using the cloud. Simulating data breaches can help employees better identify and prevent these kinds of threats, give IT professionals information on problematic users, and improve employee response times in the event of an actual breach.
Keeping your data safe is an evolving task, and even the best security protocols find themselves tested with increasing frequency. By taking these steps, users and businesses alike can stop data breaches before they happen, mitigate the damage of any successful breach, ensure any lost data is recoverable, and still take full advantage of all that cloud storage has to offer.
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