The year is 2025. Progress in cloud-based technologies has accelerated multifold everywhere except in Cynicalville. This place is populated by enterprises that were, and still are, not too sure about Cloud Computing. When Silicon Valley talked about Cloud’s flexibility and cost-effectiveness, Cynicalville was too worried about Cloud Security and the implementation costs. They neglected Gartner’s predictions , Forrester’s assertions and turned a blind eye towards every other augury that the world is indeed moving towards cloud-based technologies.

Now, if you are an inhabitant of Cynicalville, on behalf of the responsible citizens of future, this blog in 2017 is one humble attempt in convincing you to be mindful of the security concerns but still take that leap towards cloud.

Conquering cloud security concerns

A 2016 research conducted among IT professionals from large and medium-sized enterprises in the US by Clutch tells that as much as 47% of the respondents feel that increased efficiency is the main benefit of their cloud migration action and 90% of the enterprises are planning to increase their annual spending on cloud computing in general.

Despite the favorable climate towards cloud-based technologies in the market, there is no denying that Cloud-based technologies and services are still susceptible to security and performance threats. But the larger point is to understand that so is every other technological development that ever existed.  To help you ponder more on this side, here are three main areas of concern in cloud-based implementations and the ways they are tackled.

  • Data

Data is the currency of today and a potential catalyst for war in the future. Almost every industry has started collecting and consuming data like never before. In cloud, according to the cloud adoption & risk report 2016, an average organization creates over 2.7 billion unique data-based interactions every month.

The volatile nature of raw data makes it delicate to handle and there is no denying of the fact that the risk in maintaining it in the cloud gets multiplied. The common, yet fatal, data mishaps such as data breach and loss are currently mitigated in cloud by introducing more complex data classification and superior controlled encryption methods. Cloud technologies are currently regulated by strict region-wise security standards and even the average cloud providers in the market are quite serious about improved data backups.

  • Application

User accounts and applications are the next common targets in cloud for the troublemakers. From account hijacks, credential access management to weak APIs, there are enough problems to haunt IT teams’ dreams. As a preliminary solution, majority of private and public cloud providers have well-knit cloud protection services that maintain the stability of their applications 24*7. There has been increased awareness in the use of penetrative testing as a potential weapon to identify system vulnerabilities and the active adopters are now investing into automatic load balancing mechanisms to keep their programs up and running.

  • Infrastructure/ Network

Attacking the infrastructure/network is the oldest trick in the book for hackers and there is virtually no enterprise in this world, in or off cloud, which is safe. The terms “cloud” and “networks” are immediately associated with “resource sharing” and more often than not, enterprises are paranoid about sharing their accounts in a common space.

While cloud IT infrastructure spending is on the rise (and is expected to reach $53.1 billion by 2019), true progress can be made only along with increased awareness about the cloud space and the existence of advance tools that offers multi-factor authentication systems, network segmentation etc.

As far as threats to the networks in cloud is concerned, the work is half done when enterprises are keen on picking the best service providers who ensure thorough and proper defense mechanisms and choose to strictly abide by the industrial standards. Some of the more advanced infrastructure threats like denial of service, critical intrusions etc. can be prevented by ensuring a strong host and network-based Intrusion Detection System (IDS).

Ever since IT started booming as a mainstream industry, more leading players in the market are increasingly showing interest in cloud-based technologies and there are adequate tools, for every need and budget, to address the threats and deficiencies of a cloud system. It is now safe to say that increased investment will only push this field to innovate more and preempt the challenges of the future.

To know more in depth about the ways to address cloud security concerns, check our Whitepaper on Cloud Security Considerations for the 2017 Enterprise” where we discuss more facts, tools and methods that would convince any enterprise to make that move out of Cynicalville.