The recent spate of worldwide cyber-attacks has done little to deter businesses from moving forward with their digital transformation plans. In fact, new research shows cloud adoption in the enterprise isn’t slowing despite cyber-security and data protection concerns.
While businesses continue to move forward with their plans cloud security has been thrust into the spotlight once again. In this two-part post, we’ll look at six steps to better cloud security.
Be aware of the security level you need
Every business should be aware of its needs when it comes to security. Ensure that the service provider you decide to use has the correct features that can meet up to your specific security requirements. The nature of your business and the type of information you need protected will determine the level of security you require.
Check the physical personnel and security of your service provider
When it comes to selecting a service provider, do your research. Examine their physical types of security measures as well as their personnel management practices. Find out who will be able to view your information and what protocols they have in place regarding natural disasters, disaster recovery and co-location.
Deploy intelligent security that responds to change
As threats evolve you need your security needs to be intelligent enough to respond to these changes. Consider a behavioural-based solution, capable of identifying new or anomalous activity so you can stay on top of zero-day attacks and new behaviours that threaten your security.
Identify suspicious user activity
Catching suspicious user behaviour early is the key to successfully defending yourself against security breaches. For example, sometimes developers unintentionally copy files from the production server. You need to be informed when such activity occurs and take corrective actions.
Use data encryption
If you want to protect your data from unwanted access, try encrypting it. There are cloud protection apps available that will generate passwords and secret key sequences then apply them to your files before upload. This means the content of your files will remain off-limits to anyone without a password. You can also choose a Cloud provider that offers encryption services.
Protect against the insider threat
No one likes to think about the possibility of an internal threat because we would all like to trust our employees however it is something you cannot ignore. Should an incident occur, it’s important that you have a trail of logins, processes, network activity and file changes to answer the who, what, where, when and why.
