Capital One’s massive data breach left everyone aghast and raised doubts about cloud computing for the first time. Still the belief that the cloud is the safest way to save data remains intact.
Isn’t that ironic?
Indeed it is, but when the cloud is compared against on-premises it is the perfect solution to secure business operations. Cloud computing is the most convenient and secure way to protect data. The reason behind Capital One’s data breach was not cloud computing. Instead, it is the shift of companies towards cloud computing services like Amazon Web Services (AWS) and others.
Small and big both businesses are becoming overly reliant on cloud computing services due to which they overlook security. Instead of taking responsibility for data security they leave everything on cloud computing service providers.
There’s no harm in doing so as cloud computing is secure, but companies too need to take responsibility for their own data. Here we enlist the security advantages of a cloud-based system.
Security Advantages of Cloud-Based System
Once companies have taken all the necessary steps to ensure data safety, they can take benefit from cloud computing in several different ways listed below:
1. Services like SaaS (Software as a Service) are hosted on cloud servers
This one is the biggest benefit of cloud computing but has its own risk.
The power of cloud computing makes data protection very important, servers used to host your data need to be protected in a better manner then on-site servers. Moreover, the cloud service provider needs to maintain & handle all updates, and support promptly. Undoubtedly this takes a lot of pressure off the IT department. But this doesn’t mean companies stop taking care of their data.
Although placing data on the cloud means no control of the company and the firewall protecting data is no longer your own. But since the company is still working with the data, it needs to be secured at the company’s end too.
2. Curtails the Risk of Human Error – One of Biggest Threat to Data Security
The decrease in the number of human interactions is proportional to the decrease in chances that lead to a data breach. Hackers are able to bypass the most secure firewalls due to a human error as someone at the other end was too careless to click on the malicious link sent intentionally, often in an email.
But if your data is stored on cloud then such types of hacks will not harm it. As this is on the premises attack.
Moreover, when a layer of automation is added then the amount of human interaction is reduced, resulting in better data security. So with this, we can say fewer people interaction safer the data.
3. Transferring of Data via Secure channels
Old, mundane methods are the most common reasons responsible for data breaches. Hackers know how to create spoof versions of email programs that people can fall for. This makes data vulnerable to attack. Especially during the online sale, tax season, when emails are sent to the customer from the site or financial department it’s easy to fall prey for these email spoofs and share data with hackers directly.
Therefore, it is important to transfer data via secure channels. For this nothing can be better than cloud computing. Data sent via cloud computing is secure as it is transmitted via encrypted channels. All this eliminates the risk of spoofs and other common ploys. Not only does this cloud computing keeps data under the radar thus reducing the possibility of tracking data via other means.
As we all know email is one of the worst ways to share and send confidential, private and sensitive data yet we all do this. Hence to stay secure we need to transfer data via a secure channel. The strict standard for data privacy sets by the EU’s GDPR is to ensure data security and safety.
4. Differentiation between work and storage environment
Another great benefit of cloud computing is its networking segmentation between computing and storage. The advantage of this differentiation is the reduction of risk in the number of data breaches. Even if a cybercriminal manages to bypass defenses the data will not be accessible. How?
Segmentation of data in first place limits the number of people who can access data. Thus helping to keep crucial information in the hands of only those few who need it. As the group of people who are accessing this data is limited it will be easy to mitigate the risk of a data breach.
How can we avoid the Next Capital One Breach?
To date, there are not many companies that are committed to the benefits of cloud computing. Despite the fact that Capital One suffered a major data breach. We cannot overlook that it even helped the bank to resume operations quickly.
This data breach has been an eye-opener for many and has brought greater awareness to the field of cloud security and data protection. The breach did not prove cloud computing is less secure instead it shows companies need to take care of their data even though they have outsourced data security.
If you cannot guard your own data, then no one else can. This means companies need to guard at all times and take security measures to ensure data safety. Moreover, they need to be watchful and should take advanced technology into consideration to secure data.
What do you think about this? Do you have anything to say about data security, cloud computing? Comment below and let us know what you think.
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