Cloud Security Tips

Despite the clear benefits of cloud computing, protecting proprietary data and critical workloads remains a concern for organizations. These concerns can be resolved by choosing a provider with a solid and documented approach to safeguarding your data and applications.

Here is what you can do to improve cloud security:

1. Subscribe to a Cloud Service Provider.

If you want to improve security without taking on the load overhead, you may want to consider third-party providers for subscribing to Infrastructure or Software as a Service. Subscribing to a cloud-based service, rather than purchasing the hardware and software licenses required to run the technology in-house can be a real boon to small and mid-sized organizations.

2. Determine the type of cloud architecture most suitable for you.

The first thing to do for a company wishing to implement a Cloud platform is to identify the service they need. In case they want to use public clouds, it is important that the service provider isolates data, messaging services and applications for its customer’s data to be secure. This means that each client must be unable to access data of other users, either for reading or writing. During the installation of private cloud services, the provider must make sure to partition data according to various constraints and commercial activities, while meeting compliance requirements.

3. Ask the right questions

Since all storage facilities are different, it is important to ask the right questions to a potential service provider for good storage infrastructure. This is the only way to assess the impact of change of storage mode on the company.

Questions to ask a potential cloud provider include:

• Where and how will the data be stored?
• How will data be partitioned on shared servers and networks to ensure your information is not mixed with other clients’ data?
• What provisions are in place to protect your resources from a cyber attack?
• How will the provider ensure your data is purged from their servers upon termination of the contract?

These questions are not just academic. In all cases, even when using a third-party for hosting or cloud computing, the ultimate responsibility for protecting your company’s data falls on you – legally and in the eyes of the market.

4. Agree on a certain level of service and security.

In the framework agreement on service levels (Service Level Agreements –SLA), companies must be able to define the benefits they expect from their suppliers. They should therefore enter into agreements service levels with their cloud provider, so that these benefits viz. adequate security are guaranteed.

5. Never put too much confidence in the cloud.

Have no password that is too simple and do not have the same password on different services on the Internet. It specifies that the security of cloud is impossible to guarantee. As a precaution, there are types of content that should not be stored online, such as bank data and medical data. All environment software is fragile.

The risks are higher for firms that sometimes store everything on the cloud (including financial records) to reduce their computational cost.

Cloud computing can provide a net gain in data security and system. Outsourcing the management of your infrastructure to these service providers, you can get access to advanced security solutions which you may not be able to afford and manage on your own. In so doing, you can focus on doing your business and let the cloud provider handle the security issues.