What Is Cloud Data Security?
Cloud data security refers to the process of safeguarding information and other cyber-based data assets against threats from security issues, human actions, and insiders. It takes advantage of technology, policies, and procedures to maintain your information in confidence but is also accessible to legitimate users when cloud-based infrastructure is used. Cloud computing provides numerous advantages where you can retrieve data from any source using an internet connection to minimize the likelihood of data loss in case of outages or events and enhance scalability and responsiveness. Meanwhile, several organizations are holding back from moving applications containing sensitive information into the cloud because they cannot understand their security features and comply with regulatory requirements. Knowing how to protect cloud data is still one of the biggest challenges to resolve as companies move away from creating and maintaining on-premises data centres. So, what is cloud data security? How is your data secured? And what are the best practices for cloud data security to ensure cloud-based data assets are safe and secure? Continue reading for more information about cloud data security advantages and disadvantages, how it functions, and how Qualysec helps businesses identify, examine, and prevent threats in cloud, on-premises, and hybrid environments. Why do companies need cloud security? We are now in the age of big data, with corporations creating, capturing, and storing gigabytes of data, from highly sensitive business or personal customer information to less confidential data such as behavioural and marketing analysis. In addition to the increasing amounts of data that businesses must be able to access, manage, and analyze, organizations are turning to cloud security services to enable them to realize greater agility and shorter time to market and to enable more remote or hybrid workforces. The traditional network circle is rapidly vanishing, and security teams understand that they need to rethink what has been and is being done when it comes to protecting cloud data. Since data and apps no longer reside within your data centre, businesses are faced with solving how to safeguard data and grant access to data as it traverses across different channels. Data privacy, integrity, and accessibility Cloud data security best practices follow the same guiding principles of information security and data governance: Frequently called the CIA triad, these three general pillars are the central ideas that constitute the foundation of robust, effective security infrastructure—or any company’s security program. Any breach, vulnerability, or other security issue will probably break one (or more) of these rules. That is why security professionals employ this model to assess possible risks to an organization’s data assets. What are the challenges of cloud data security? The greater the distance from a single data centre and away from standard security measures and infrastructure, the greater the exposure risk. While much of the underlying elements of on-premises data security are still there, they have to be transposed to the cloud. Typical issues with data protection in cloud or hybrid environments are: “Related content: Read our guide to – Cloud Penetration Testing“ Latest Penetration Testing Report Download What are the benefits of cloud data security? Greater visibility Robust cloud data security features enable you to keep an eye on the inner movement of your cloud, i.e., what data assets you possess and where they reside, who accesses your cloud security services, and what type of data they access. Data encryption Organizations have to be capable of safeguarding sensitive information at all times and wherever it may travel. Cloud service providers enable you to meet secure cloud data transfer, storage, and sharing by applying numerous layers of complex encryption for safeguarding cloud information, both during transit and storage. Easy backups and recovery Cloud data security can provide various solutions and capabilities to automate and standardize backups, relieving your teams from having to monitor manual backups and troubleshoot issues. Cloud-based disaster recovery also allows you to restore and recover data and applications in minutes. Lower costs Cloud data security lowers the total cost of ownership (TCO) and the administrative and management overhead of cloud data security. Furthermore, cloud providers provide the most recent security features and tools, enabling security professionals to do their work with automation, streamlined integration, and continuous alerting. Cloud data compliance Strong cloud data security solutions are built to fulfil compliance requirements, such as having visibility into where data is being stored, who has access to it, how it’s processed, and how it’s being protected. Cloud data loss prevention (DLP) can assist you in finding, classifying, and de-identifying sensitive information with ease to mitigate the risk of breaches. Advanced incident detection and response A benefit of cloud data protection is that hosts spend money on the latest AI technology and intrinsic security analytics, which assist you in automatically searching for suspicious traffic to detect and react to security incidents in real time. Who is responsible for securing your data? Cloud providers and their customers both have responsibility for cloud security. The specific division of labour will vary based on your deployment and whether you opt for IaaS, PaaS, or SaaS as your cloud computing model. Generally, a cloud provider is responsible for the security of the cloud itself, and you are responsible for securing anything within the cloud, including data, user identities, and access rights (identity and access management). At Qualysec, we can assist you in applying best practices through secure-by-default configurations, blueprints, policy hierarchies, and premium security features to enable developing security consistency on your platforms and tools. “Read more: Cloud Infrastructure Security – Importance, Challenges, Best Practices“ What it means to be compliant: To be compliant in the case of the cloud means that any systems and services must safeguard data privacy based on legal standards and data protection regulations, data sovereignty, or data localization legislation. Some sectors, like financial services or healthcare, will also have a secondary set of laws that include mandatory guidelines and security procedures that must be adhered to. That is why we must look to cloud service providers and carefully analyze their