Main Challenges in Cloud Data Security

Approximately three-fourths of companies are expected to rely on the cloud to run almost all of their business operations by next year. More and more companies are turning towards cloud computing and are interested in leveraging the flexibility, scale, and speed that a cloud infrastructure offers. When the cloud computing technology becomes more and more popular and radically changes the way businesses gather, utilize, and share data, it puts you at a higher risk for cybercrime.

Those who provide cloud services put both money and time into enhancing cloud data security and improving trust among customers. Solutions which were considered full of risks have become stronger through containerization, advanced failover, automated threat detection, and data encryption capabilities.

Those who provide cloud services put both money and time into enhancing cloud data security and improving trust among customers. Solutions which were considered full of risks have become stronger through containerization, advanced failover, automated threat detection, and data encryption capabilities.

However, threats to critical infrastructure and key service applications continue to exist and grow. As cloud adoption keeps increasing rapidly so are malicious threats. IT professionals feel the need to consistently discover ways to better identify these threats and keeping data safe. Information technology professionals have to keep in mind the following challenges.

Security Breach

Also known as a security violation, the average cost of a security breach is approximately $3.86 million throughout the world. Cloud services that businesses are accessing daily, such as cloud collaboration services, note sharing applications, or other cloud applications used in just marketing, are especially exposed to the possibility of being hacked or attacked by cybercriminals.

To overcome this obstacle, you can put money into data encryption and/or tokenization to protect your data from those activities. Besides, consider using both intrusion detection and threat intelligence tools at the network perimeter. Using both of these tools will help you detect a threat and make it less severe.

Non-Compliance

The consequence of a security violation is its downstream effect on that company’s corporate responsibilities. Inquiries resulting from a security violation might just show that that company did not follow the rules of keeping the data safe from the violation.

Following PCI DSS, GDPR, HIPAA and other data compliance standards is the most prudent course of action to protect sensitive data and systems. However, several businesses take a special effort to ensure regulatory compliance if they have used cloud storage for their data. A data breach can mean costly penalties, legal cases, and even criminal fines.

The solution for this is to grow and implement a data governance policy that is applicable to the whole company. It should specify which parties are allowed to access data and how they should handle it. Make sure to put these policies into practice through IAM solutions.

Insider Threats

An organization’s workers pose a serious threat to information security. They commit the mistakes of creating the same kind of passwords for several accounts while carelessly sharing them with no security credential at all.  One of the major insider threats for a company originating from its own employees is phishing. This cybercrime accounts for two out of three threats that happen by mistake.

According to 55% of people who lead companies, the main threats to cloud data security are unauthorized access via the passwords and username of workers and inappropriate access controls for online apps.

As a solution to this, connect automated identity and access management systems with continued user training which strengthens how data is handled and accessed throughout the company.

Unprotected Application Programming Interfaces

APIs enable many different online applications to communicate with each other without any problems. This in turn, helps organizations change their tech environment to better suit their needs.

However, the basic characteristic of application programming interfaces makes this a threat to the data’s safety in the cloud. To exchange sensitive data from one app to another, application programming interfaces need direct access to every single program and credential verification. When the set of application programming interfaces develops, there is also an increase in vulnerable areas being exploited by cybercriminals.

For a solution, use SSL certificate to encrypt connections between where the data is sent and authorized using these factors such as, incoming internet protocol address, geography and device identification.

Disaster Recovery

You never know when something bad will happen. Unexpected situations such as a blackout and a disaster could simply mean losing access to your information technology infrastructure. If that occurs, the key data will be out of the organization’s control, and in turn, it might just stop. In the event of a power blackout, frequently used applications and technologies will not be accessible and the data transfer process from point to point will be broken up until the connectivity is brought back.

To solve this, design a business continuity and disaster recovery scheme considering cloud apps and workloads. Evaluate the data protection and security measures of your cloud service providers and ask for frequent audit reports.