Cloud Security: How to keep your data safe

As Cloud computing becomes ever more familiar, more and more businesses, large and small, have begun moving their data to the cloud to leverage its cost-effectiveness, efficiency, and flexibility.

But as cloud computing dependency increases, so does the need for robust and up-to-date cloud security. The continuous frequency of cyberattacks, and the novel approaches adopted by cyber criminals pose a huge threat to businesses. Loss of confidential records, customer data and intellectual property, inevitably results in damage to the business and reputation.

But migrating to the cloud doesn’t absolve an organization of security responsibilities. A surprisingly high proportion of security breaches can be avoided by putting proper protocols in place and keeping a watchful eye on adherence to them. Early detection & response remain imperatives for cloud security. Adapting from lessons learned completes the circle and goes a long way towards ensuring data security.

Basic Threats to Cloud Security

• Lack awareness among consumers
• Inadequate/weak user access controls
• Improper/inconsistent backup
• Insider threats
• Insecure APIs
• Improper logging and monitoring
• Advanced persistent and malware threats

Whose responsibility lies where?

Security has always been one of the big reasons enterprises driving cloud transformation. Barring a very few, really massive enterprises, the cost of investing in talent, software and hardware to ensure data security is too prohibitive to be sustainable in a traditional IT environment.

The primary reason for compromised data is a misconfigured cloud environment. Hence, it is essential for organizations to understand where their responsibility towards their own cloud security lies, and what their Cloud Service Provider (CSP) is responsible for. This will enable their IT teams and respective cloud providers to set up the best resolutions.

Of the three basic service models, Software as a Service, or SaaS is the most widely used. It is also one of the most secure, with accounts for much of its popularity. As well as the fact that the user—individual, start up or enterprise—is responsible for only the interfaces and the data. The rest is taken care of by the CSPs.

Platform as a Service (PaaS), is highly popular with developers, and businesses engaged in app development, primarily because the platform gives them the features and freedom to create and customize solutions for mobile and web. But with this freedom also comes more responsibility. Here, CSPs are responsible for the building and maintaining IT infrastructure; however, organizations are responsible for their data, interfaces and applications.

With Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) models, CSPs manage hypervisors, data processing, interfaces, and physical infrastructure, but the organization itself is nevertheless responsible for managing and securing the virtual network, operating systems, data, interfaces, applications, middleware and virtual machines.

While responsibilities shift more towards the CSP as deployment models go from private to hybrid to public cloud, some aspects, such as access control—the source of most misconfigurations, remain the organization’s responsibility.

TeleGlobal Cloud Security

As cloud consultants to diverse enterprises, backed by 100% certified cloud engineers and successful implementations across the world, Teleglobal is well positioned to help you address cybersecurity risks, including cloud security consulting, compliance and governance of cloud infrastructure.

Designed to be Secure

Our teams handle infrastructure provisioning taking a comprehensive multilayered security approach in line with industry best practices.

Continuous Monitoring

Continuous monitoring of all security events ensures all the activities of applications and infrastructure are effectively tracked and audited.

Compliance & Governance

We conduct regular audits to identify and address any divergence from best practices. Regular, review meetings between our teams and our customers ensures compliance levels and security measures are stringently followed.

Cloud Security Consulting

TeleGlobal has been helping organizations across the industry spectrum strengthen their security through use of the latest threat detection technologies. Our active monitoring, identification, audits and overall security framework identifies real, potential threats, and deals with them, leaving you free to take care of business.

Think you need a health check-up of your cloud security measures? Schedule a meeting with us today, our experts are happy to help.