It may sound like we’re stating the obvious here, but many organizations are increasingly using cloud computing to store and process data these days. By 2025, Gartner predicts 70% of all workloads will be handled on the cloud. That’s incredibly significant, necessitating a massive change in how companies approach cloud security and migration. While the cloud offers plenty of benefits for businesses, there are also plenty of security threats involved as organizations increasingly use these cloud services. In this article, we’ll cover how businesses use the cloud, what the risks are, and how to navigate cloud usage/migration at your organization.
Table of Contents
How Businesses Use The Cloud
The cloud is, perhaps, one of the most important and helpful technological innovations we have—especially from a business standpoint. Using a cloud offers cost effective and actionable solutions for business, whether it’s in the e-commerce space, medical field, or other industries. Cloud services allow businesses to store and process large amounts of information without having to invest in expensive hardware or software. Companies also have access to more powerful tools that can help them scale their operations. Cloud computing covers Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS). IaaS provides companies with access to servers that they can use for various purposes such as storing data or running applications; PaaS allows users to build their own apps without needing technical knowledge; SaaS gives them ready-made solutions like CRM systems or specialized software that customers can use for their own needs. Despite their amazing benefits and practical uses, cloud environments can be hacked, attacked, or compromised. And it’s up to the organization to address safety and security concerns in their own clouds, hybrid or otherwise.
Migration Risks
Companies deciding to migrate their data to the cloud must be aware of some of the pros and cons of doing so. Although it’s a great way to increase collaboration, productivity, cost savings, backup systems, and improve security, it does have its own pitfalls. When businesses migrate to the cloud, it can create some challenges. First there’s some down time and network disruptions during the migration. There’s also a loss of control over data and potential issues with vendors. There’s some security and privacy concerns they can come up with as well. That’s why it’s so vital to vet the cloud service provider and implement some security measures as you undertake the process of SaaS migration to the cloud. Keeping your organizations secure while migrating is important. Companies must also consider the time it’ll take to migrate data and any cost associated with hardware or personnel costs. That, along with determining the benefits and hazards of moving to a cloud environment for your organization, should factor into your cloud migration plan.
Current Cloud Threats
Organizations continue to move into Cloud operations, the types of security threats only continue to grow. Insider attacks, where somebody on the inside provides access for a hacker are becoming more and more prominent everyday. Account hijacking, DDOS attacks, and data breaches are also happening with increasing frequency. Ransomware is a strong and pervasive threat that can creep its way into an organization via the cloud. Even weak credentials, issues with a vendor, and human error can play a role in cloud security. These aren’t the only security threats facing companies using or migrating to the cloud either, but they are among some of the most common and security teams must be aware of them in order to maintain strong security controls.
Current Cloud Security Measures
Speaking of strong security controls, current cloud security measures can go a long way to prevent some of the more common cloud security issues. Identity and access management, where privileges are tightly controlled, is one of the most important. If you’re not already doing it, you should seriously consider hiring IAM services. Featuring intrusion detection and prevention systems is also key to keeping a class secure. The addition of encryption, firewalls, multi factor authentication, and limited privileges can also be helpful in creating a more secure Cloud environment. This is especially important to reduce silos during a migration. Other measures, like security audits and implementing security policies are also critical for preventing security breaches. Training employees on cloud security best practices can also be helpful for mitigating risks. By implementing these measures and using cloud migration security tools to help manage threats, organizations can help to mitigate cloud security threats and protect their data and resources.
The Future of Cloud Security
Although there are some well tested procedures for cloud security (both for regular use and migration), things are likely to change a great deal in the future. With the ascension of AI and machine learning—and its subsequent incorporation into literally everything anymore—the future of cloud security is looking pretty interesting. Incorporating these tools into Cloud security presents exciting opportunities for enhanced threat detection and even better risk management / mitigation. As cloud security continues to evolve, organizations must stay up to date on the latest trends and best practices to make sure they can keep their cloud environments safe and secure. Taking the right approach and using the appropriate security protocols can ultimately benefit organizations, especially as the face of cloud security changes as we move into the future.
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