Cloud storage, despite being a relatively recent innovation, has been treated as the most reliable answer to the question of how to safely store your data. To some extent, the hype is very much well deserved and cloud storage provides security to your sensitive data. Besides, it is a lot easier to save your data on a cloud provider than to build data centers that could be expensive and time-consuming. It also drastically cuts down IT costs down the road and ensures that the operations keep running smoothly.
However, it’s not all utopian perfect in the world of cloud storage. There are some genuine concerns regarding how safe cloud storage is. It is worth taking them into consideration before signing up with any cloud storage provider. Let’s take a look at the top security threats in the cloud storage industry:
Safety Concern 1: You’re relying on someone to safeguard your data
That’s the biggest concern. Someone else has full control of your data. This could easily result in fraud, phishing, or software exploits if the organization happens to choose an unreliable provider. Most of the data breaches that have taken place over the last few years were actually inside jobs. It could be because of an uninformed employee passing the information unknowingly or because of malicious intent such as data theft or revenge of any current or former employee.
Proper training of employees and appropriate diligence over logging, monitoring, and auditing administrative activities are highly important. Make sure that all consumers’ files are encrypted and minimum access is given to the users.
Safety Concern 2: No standardization among cloud storage providers
No two cloud service providers provide the same set of services. Some cloud providers provide end to end encryption while others don’t. Systems are transparent for consumers by one cloud provider but the same facility is not provided by the other provider due to their policies.
The lack of standardization could make potential clients nervous to rely on cloud storage for safety and storage. However, various organizations such as DMTF and IEEE are already working towards standardizations in cloud storage technology.
Safety Concern 3: Cyber Attacks
Data breaches and cyber- attacks are nothing new. As cloud technology is relatively new, for some cyber attackers it means an attractive new avenue for them to try their cyber attacking skills. This could spell disaster for cloud storage providers, as it can lead to a lawsuit or even criminal charges in case of security breaches.
Cloud storage providers should ensure that they employ in-depth security measures. The CSA (cloud security alliance) recommends organizations to use multifactor authentication and strong encryption to protect against cyber-attacks.
Safety Concern 4: Data Ownership
Ownership of data is a complicated issue that can be troublesome for companies. Government invasion is also a serious concern as the government tries to claim the access of information from the holder of the document through legal action.
It should be considered as a standard that the sole owner of the information is the one who puts the data on cloud storage. Cloud storage providers act as custodian of the information and cannot pass the information without the owner’s consent. In many countries, intellectual property laws are the right of the public. However, as this law varies from country to country, it’s important for the cloud storage providers to have their data centers located in a country where the standards of privacy are high.
Safety Concern 5: Shared Technology
Unless the user has a private cloud, the cloud service providers share infrastructure, platforms, and applications. In the case of any vulnerability in these, it could affect the security of an entire provider’s cloud, and thus multiple clients could be at risk at the same time. Cloud storage providers can eliminate this concern by doing network segmentation and patching shared resources. It is also important to ensure that backups of important documents are available.
In conclusion, cloud security threats pose a serious risk factor for organizations that are moving their data to cloud storage. It’s quite difficult to stay one hundred percent secure and safe with the cloud storage. Hence, it’s always a good idea to explore other backup and information storage options such as from various reliable organizations. SMiD is one such reliable platform that offers multiple solutions suitable to your needs that can give you secure and dependable options for storing your sensitive information.