It is a scary thought. The analyst firm Gartner predicts that a whopping 99% of cloud security breaches will be the customer’s fault by 2025. This means that cloud providers (like Amazon, Microsoft and Slack) are doing an excellent job at keeping their platforms secure but their clients (businesses across the globe) are failing.
How does this work? The cloud works on a shared responsibility model. The cloud provider is responsible for ensuring that their infrastructure is safe from hacking. However, it is up to the client who uses the service to ensure that it is correctly configured.
A simple example is to think of Google Drive. Have you ever accidentally left a document or sheet open to the public instead of limiting access to certain personnel? This is the kind of cloud data breach we’re talking about.
There are also other cloud security concerns like hackers stealing employee credentials, employees sharing confidential data with the wrong recipient and malicious insiders stealing data without companies realizing it.
In line with this, recent research found that 70% of organizations hosting data or workloads in the cloud experienced a security incident in the last year with multi-cloud organizations reporting up to twice as many incidents vs single platform adopters.
Regardless of the size of a business, a single cyberattack can cost at least $200,000 according to a Hiscox Cyber Readiness Report. Moreover, 60% of companies shut their doors permanently after being attacked.
While this might all seem a little doom and gloom, the good news is that many of these cloud data breaches are preventable with a thorough strategy.
We will take a look at the three critical factors for cloud security success that you need to consider to keep your data, accounts and business secure.
Implement Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)
Most cloud providers offer multi-factor authentication. It’s up to you to implement it. Multi-factor authentication places another layer of security on your logins. Users will log in with a username and password and your employees will need to verify themselves via email or a phone code.
MFA is a simple and effective way to protect against password compromise. One of the best ways to do this is to implement a single sign-on (SSO) solution to reduce the number of times a user needs to log in to their work apps.
If you want to go a step further, consider creating an identity and access management process to keep track of users and the data that they have access to in the cloud.
Deploy Login and Online Activity Monitoring
You probably use automation for some business processes. Have you also considered its potential for improving security? Most cloud applications have monitoring tools that can help you analyze user behavior. For example, if your employee logs in from an unknown location or at an odd time, these solutions can automatically flag an alert and block the risky user until they are verified.
Backup Your Data
Companies often don’t think about backing up their cloud tools. They mistakenly think that cloud storage is the same as cloud backup. However, they are two very different things.
Cloud storage is “live” which means that files can be altered and deleted. A backup is a snapshot of all backed-up files that can’t be edited in that same way and is designed to enable a full restore should you lose your data.
While backup doesn’t prevent a data breach, it can dramatically increase your pace of recovery. Even large software providers like Microsoft recommend that users back up their cloud data. In Microsoft’s Services Agreement, it states:
“In the event of an outage, you may not be able to retrieve your content or data that you’ve stored. We recommend that you regularly back up.”
Optimize Cloud Security with Managed IT Services
Keeping data safe in the cloud is a full-time job. However, many small and medium-sized businesses don’t have the internal expertise and resources to dedicate a lot of time to cloud security. If this sounds like you, don’t worry. You may want to consider managed IT services for your cloud computing needs.
Our highly affordable managed IT security and cloud services will mean that you will never need to worry about the security of your cloud solutions again. We provide multiple solutions to help your specific type of business increase efficiency, boost security and optimize productivity in the cloud.
We can take care of your cloud solutions from end to end and ensure secure deployment and management.
How Strong Is Your Cloud Account Security?
Sound Computers can help your Connecticut business implement innovative cloud security solutions that help to improve security while boosting employee productivity.
Contact us today to schedule a free consultation. Call 860-577-8060 or reach us online.