Cloud computing is irrefutably among the prominent new technologies that are increasingly becoming widespread today. This popularity and increased migration of applications, data, and other vital elements from an on-site data center to the cloud is owed to the benefits that businesses stand to reap.

From allowing you to work from any place and increased agility to reduced expenditure on costly hardware, the list of perks is undeniably long.

With the growing hype surrounding cloud computing, it makes perfect sense to flip the coin and focus on security concerns. Even though you may regulate the information you share with your preferred cloud service providers, you lack control of the parties who can gain access to it. What’s more, storing most of your vital business data on the internet poses the risk of increased exposure, especially to malicious actors.

So how do you move your business or startup to the cloud securely? Well, for starters, you need to consider these risks before rushing off to leverage this popular service.

Service Availability Risks

One of the typical problems associated with cloud services is partial or complete cloud service unavailability. Mostly this issue is owed to failure by cloud service providers to provide appropriate backup solutions during emergencies. Power failure, slow processing due to data overloading and other problems affect flawless delivery of cloud computing services.

Identification Risks

Cloud servers are widely distributed across the globe and do not have a permanent or fixed location. As such, identifying the appropriate location of a server hosted on the cloud can be a daunting task, especially for new users. Are you comfortable with your company’s data being distributed everywhere? This is a risk you must consider since this case is inevitable when it comes to cloud computing.

Network Overloading

Proper maintenance and management of the cloud network are necessary to avoid specific problems such as reduced system performance due to overloading. Furthermore, your servers might crash as a result of the increasing data motion rate between the PC disk and memory. Learn about edge computing and its benefits here.

Accessibility Risks

Moving your startup or company’s data to the cloud increases its vulnerability. As such, access details ought to be handled with a lot of confidentiality. Also, make sure the access privileges are distributed appropriately and carefully to prevent them from falling into the wrong hands.

Best Practices for Keeping your Data Safe on the Cloud

Here are several tips or recommendations to help keep your company and data safe when shifting to the cloud:

Create a Plan for Security Control

Leverage third-party tools to create a plane for security control. Doing so will help you attain improved data security, visibility, automated security configurations, as well as compliance and data security.

Create a Vendor Management Program

You do not necessarily have to trust your cloud service providers. However, make sure you assess their security controls in a bid to stay safe from data breaches. Establish service-level agreements and agreed-upon controls with your cloud service providers.

Backup Your Data in a Different Fault Domain

Effectively spread risk by backing up all your data in a different fault domain from where it is stored in production. Even though some cloud service providers provide backup services as an additional cost option, note that this cannot be a substitute for appropriate backups. Additionally, bear in mind that customers themselves are responsible for maintaining their backups.

Take Charge of Application Security

Cloud service providers are not responsible for the application code security that you create and run in the cloud. Leverage both dynamic and static testing tools in identifying and getting rid of application weaknesses. Also, use cloud-based tools when testing cloud-based workloads.

End to End Encryption of Data in Transition

For the security of your data, any interaction within your servers ought to take place through SSL transmission. The SSL ought to only terminate within the bounds of your cloud service provider’s network. Encryption is also paramount for data at rest. Most cloud providers allow you to specify the fields that require encryption, for instance, a credit card number.

Check for Compliance Certifications

The PCI DSS is among the most crucial certifications that you should be interested in when dealing with a SaaS provider. For this case, a provider will have to go through rigorous audits to ensure that sensitive data is transmitted, processed, and stored securely. On the other hand, the SOC 2 certification is useful in vendor management programs, internal risk management activities, and regulatory compliance oversight. The two certifications provide essential comparative details regarding the various cloud service providers you could be considering to contract.

Conclusion

Although cloud computing may seem like a miracle in various ways, the truth is that it is still far from being perfect. Hence, being a small or medium enterprise, you need to consider multiple risks and security aspects before and after venturing into this service. You not only have to be careful when sharing your data but also need to consider additional security measures.