The cloud is a tool essential for companies that want to scale their business.
It frees up the space in your office you’d otherwise need to use to store the server, you don’t need to keep the data on your computer, and you can access it from any convenient location.
Ideal, right?
Well, remote access to the cloud and all the data you store also interests hackers that want to exploit convenient access to the infrastructure.
How often do cloud breaches that could compromise data of your business occur?
The answer may surprise you.
Research shows that 79% of the companies that use the cloud have experienced a breach within the last 18 months.
For businesses that rely on the cloud, breaches have been a major concern. What organizations worry about the most in cloud data security are data leaks, loss of information, and breach of privacy.
These are all dangers that can seriously damage the reputation of a trusted company.
What exactly makes the cloud vulnerable to hacking, who should protect data stored on the cloud, and what are some ways you can protect it from breaches?
Let’s dive in and find out.
What Makes the Cloud Vulnerable to Attacks?
Misconfiguration of the cloud can create vulnerabilities in the cloud environment that hackers can exploit to breach systems. Those mistakes are the result of poor cloud service configurations.
Cloud misconfiguration is a major risk to cloud security and it regularly leads to breaches. This has been especially concerning for companies that had to adapt to remote work and use cloud technology to stay afloat.
Adapting to any new technology quickly means that there will likely be mistakes in the way organizations use it. In the cloud sense, these mistakes take the shape of misconfiguration.
Human error also leads to vulnerabilities that leave your organization vulnerable to cyberattacks. User errors are responsible for 65% of the cloud network breaches.
Is Data Security a Shared Responsibility?
Although cloud providers are responsible for making cloud infrastructure safe and reliable, most of the breaches in the cloud are the customers’ fault.
What businesses (AKA customers) can do is employ the top solutions that protect their cloud. You also might have the team that is responsible for using the tools that you have in place to monitor and notify you of changes in the cloud.
Responsibility of the cloud itself depends on which type of cloud we’re referring to — public or private.
Public cloud’s infrastructure is owned by cloud vendors, but organizations still own networks, data, and apps — which makes the responsibility for the cloud mutual.
Private clouds are hosted in the data center in your business. As you have access to physical and virtual networks, your organization handles the security of the cloud and has to protect all its data.
Regardless of the cloud, organizations must secure their data that is circulating and being stored in the cloud environment.
Top Cloud Data Security Concerns
Common types of attacks that occur within the cloud environment and can lead to data loss include malware injection and insider attacks. New types of cyberattack, Specter and Meltdown, have also been a significant concern lately as well.
Malware injection to the cloud includes injecting a malicious code into the cloud infrastructure. This virus allows access to cyber criminals that could lead to stolen data or eavesdropping.
Insider attacks refer to attacks that are acted out by users that have specific access to your systems. People who might perform an insider attack could be an employee that exploits their credentials to share data that should have been kept within the company’s cloud.
Specter and Meltdown attack have been noticed last year, both targeting cloud computing. Both of them exploit JavaScript codes and a flaw in modern processors that allows them to read data in the memory that is otherwise encrypted.
How to Keep Data in the Cloud Safe?
To protect the data of your company, you need to have control over it. To ensure cloud data protection, it’s essential that you have a system that classifies sensitive information and lets you know where everything is at all times.
Control of the information in the cloud means that you know who has access to your cloud. Therefore, everyone has different levels of access depending on their position within the company or whether they’re your client.
You also need to know if all or some folders that you keep in your cloud have been leaked as part of a hacking breach. Solutions that automatically track whether there has been any unauthorized and suspicious activity in your system can help with that.
Cloud vendors don’t always have top-notch cybersecurity, and that’s why it’s critical that organizations have the right tools to spot and mitigate any risks early.
These tools should give you detailed analytics of your cloud, point to high-risk violations, and check for any threats that could breach the cloud.
Tracking changes in the cloud manually is time-consuming for your IT team that already has many tasks they need to do. Also, they can’t keep up with frequent changes in the cloud.
Protect the Cloud to Get the Most Out of It
Cloud technology is an essential part of any modern business, and we can use it in many ways — from an access point for your remote workers to data storage of your organization.
However, it can be a weak link of the cybersecurity of any organization if not protected against common cyber breaches or if cloud vulnerabilities aren’t taken care of.
Strong cloud security is all about detailed analytics, sensitive data classification, and having reliable tools showing that you have points in the cloud that need to be patched up.
It’s also crucial to know where the data is, which data you have, and which information is available to whom.
Read more:
How Can Businesses Protect Data Stored in the Cloud?
