Cloud security encompasses all the policies, systems and services that protect your business from criminals. And since data is crucial to most businesses, protecting it should be taken seriously. In the past, we mostly connected to our company networks from inside the office. That made it easier to protect the data within our own four walls. But we now access application, documents and services from anywhere, and that requires a very different approach to security.
In many ways, the move to the cloud has created an open invitation to cyber criminals . All they need to do is get hold of your login credentials and they're in - relatively simple phishing emails or brute force cyber-attacks are all it takes. This provides the attacker with genuine credentials, making it even more difficult to detect unauthorized access to your systems - especially now that many of us are working flexible hours and may access systems at any hour of the day or night.
It's the equivalent of adding an electronic lock to the the front door, and only giving the key code to people with the right ID. Multi-factor authentication requires a second-stage, single use password to make the login process more secure. This second password is usually sent to a smartphone or generated via a secure USB key, so that only the intended person is able to use it.
The other good thing about MFA is that the second stage notification can act as an extra security alert. If, say, you receive a text with a single-use password, but you haven't attempted to log in to the application, you'll know that someone is trying to access your account. That allows you to take action to make sure they're not successful.
This means that your data is encoded the moment it leaves your device and stays that way in the cloud until you use it again, or share it with a privileged co-worker, for example. When it stays encrypted for the duration, this is called end-to-end encryption. It stops cyber criminals being able to hijack your data once it leaves your device or network. It also means that, should your cloud provider suffer a breach, any data that's stolen will be useless without a decryption key- which only you have.
Many cloud services will provide this service as part of your package. But it's good practice to make 100% sure, instead of assuming it's being done.
As with any of your sensitive data, you need to actively manage who is able to access what kinds of information.
It's important that these patches are applied immediately to prevent cyber criminals from taking advantage and entering your network. Alerts are often issued about newly discovered vulnerabilities and it's important that you follow the alert's advice and apply any new updates.
No network is impossible to breach. Your cloud security strategy - and indeed your entire security strategy - should always include storing offline backups of data. So if something happened that left your cloud services unavailable (like your provider suffering a major disaster of its own), your business wouldn't be thrown into the chaos.
It also means that in the event of a ransomware attack, you still have all your data to work with. You do still have to worry about where stolen data could end up, but you can at least continue working.
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