What Is Cloud Security & What Are the Benefits?

When adopting cloud technology, security is one of the most critical issues.

Many Organizations still fear that their data is not secure in the cloud environment.

Companies want to apply the same level of security to their cloud systems as their internal resources. It is essential to understand and identify the challenges of outsourcing data protection in the cloud.

What is Cloud Security?

Cloud security is a set of control-based safeguards and technology protection designed to protect resources stored online from data leakage, theft, or data loss.

Protection encompasses cloud infrastructure, applications, and data from threats. Security applications operate as software in the cloud using a Software as a Service (SaaS) model.

Topics that fall under the umbrella of security in the cloud include:

• Data center security
• Access control
• Threat prevention
• Threat detection
• Threat mitigation
• Redundancy
• Legal compliance
• Cloud security policy

How Do You Manage Security in the Cloud?

Cloud service providers use a combination of methods to protect your data.

Firewalls are a mainstay of cloud architecture. Firewalls protect the perimeter of your network security and your end-users. Firewalls also safeguard traffic between different apps stored in the cloud.

Access controls protect data by allowing you to set access lists for different assets. For instance, you might allow specific employees application access, while restricting others. A general rule is to provide employees’ access to only the tools they need to do their job. By maintaining strict access control, you can keep critical documents from malicious insiders or hackers with stolen credentials.

Cloud providers take steps to protect data that’s in transit. Data Security methods include virtual private networks, encryption, or masking. Virtual private networks (VPNs) allow remote employees to connect to corporate networks. VPNs accommodate tablets and smartphones for remote access.

Data masking encrypts identifiable information, such as names. This maintains data integrity by keeping important information private. With data masking, a medical company can share data without violating HIPAA laws, for example.

Threat intelligence spots security threats and ranks them in order of importance. This feature helps you protect mission-critical assets from threats.

Disaster recovery is key to security since it helps you recover data that are lost or stolen.

While not a security component per se, your cloud services provider may need to comply with data storage regulations. Some countries require that data must be stored within their country. If your country has this requirement, you need to verify that a cloud provider has data centers in your country.

What are the Benefits of a Cloud Security System?

Now that you understand how cloud computing security operates, explore the ways it benefits your business.

Cloud-based security systems benefit your business through:

• Protecting your business from threats
• Guarding against internal threats
• Preventing data loss

Top threats to systems include malware, ransomware, and DDos.

Malware and Ransomware Breaches

Malware poses a severe threat to businesses.

Over 90 percent of malware comes via email. It is often so convincing that employees download malware without realizing it. Once downloaded, the malicious software installs itself on your network, where it may steal files or damage content.

Ransomware is a form of malware that hijacks your data and demands a financial ransom. Companies wind up paying the ransom because they need their data back.

Data redundancy provided by the cloud offers an alternative to paying ransom for your data. You can get back what was stolen with minimal service interruption.

Many cloud data security solutions identify malware and ransomware. Firewalls, spam filters, and identity management help with this. This keeps malicious email out of employee inboxes.

DDoS Protection

In a DDoS or distributed denial of service attack, your system is flooded with requests. Your website becomes slow to load until it crashes when the number of requests is too much to handle.

DDoS attacks come with serious side effects. Every minute your website is inaccessible, you lose money.

Half of the companies that suffer DDoS attacks lose $10,000 to $100,000. Many businesses suffer from reputation damage when customers lose faith in the brand. If confidential customer data is lost in a DDoS attack, you could face legal challenges.

Given the severity of these side effects, it’s no wonder that some companies close after DDoS attacks. Consider that one recent DDoS attack lasted for 12 days and you sense the importance of protection.

Cloud security services actively monitor the cloud to identify and defend against attacks. By alerting your cloud provider of the attack in real-time, they can take steps to secure your systems.

Threat Detection

Security for cloud computing provides advanced threat detection using endpoint scanning for threats at the device level. Endpoint scanning increases security for devices that access your network.

Computing Security Considerations Require Team Effort

Cloud partners offer clear advantages over in-house data storage. Economies of scale allow a cloud service to invest in the latest security solutions, such as machine learning. As cloud solutions are scalable, your business can purchase what you need with the ability to upgrade at any time.

Now that you know what cloud security is, you have a better understanding of how service providers keep your big data safe.

Remember, a strong security policy should outline what strategies the service uses. You should ask questions to compare and ensure that you are protecting your critical business resources.