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Cloud adoption is at an all-time high with businesses migrating their workloads on multiple cloud platforms. There are clear advantages behind this move—faster delivery of products and services, optimum performance, and greater reliability of the services. However, cloud computing increases the cyber security threat as well, posing a greater challenge for an organization to secure its data and other digital assets.
Risks and Opportunities
While enterprises are working feverishly to achieve complete migration to the cloud, it comes with its own share of risks. CISOs are concerned about the uncontrolled cloud expansion with 58% CISOs ranking it as a top security concern. According to Kaspersky Lab report – On the Money: Growing IT Security Budgets to Protect Digital Transformation Initiatives, 2018, a data breach in a public cloud can cost an organization about $1.64 million.
Data in the cloud is vulnerable and cyber criminals can steal this data through a data breach. Numerous security risks associated with cloud adoption have forced organizations globally to take note and look for solutions that can enhance monitoring and visibility of the traffic traversing through the cloud. Currently, there is much effort underway to develop innovative solutions that can protect data in the cloud from potential exposure.
Artificial intelligence and machine learning are being extensively used to develop innovative cloud security solutions. For instance, automated cloud-scrubbing solutions leveraging machine learning enhance mitigation capabilities at affordable costs. These solutions empower organizations to monitor and profile multiple servers (thousands at a go) and services across networks, enabling them to reduce the attack surface and mitigate potential risks from multiple avenues.
Steps to Security
Organizations must remember that cloud security solutions alone cannot guarantee full security of the cloud and the data residing therein. Organizations will need to be proactive and take preventive measures that help reduce the attack surface. As a first step, organizations must restrict unauthorised access that will prevent data leakage.
Being vigilant and taking basic steps such as frequent data backups can help businesses prevent loss of data and speed-up business continuity efforts, should an incident occur. Organizations must also bolster their first line of defense—their employees—through adequate information about the security policies of the organization and conducting training sessions on security best practices.