Top Tips for Cloud Computing Security

While cloud computing is on constant rise, many organizations are hesitant about adopting its services into their IT infrastructure. This is because data security is the foremost concern for IT companies when it comes to cloud computing. 

Let’s understand it in-depth.

The over-popularity of cloud has made it vulnerable to hacking attempts for obvious reasons. Companies save most of their data in cloud which attracts the intruders greatly.  In addition, resources in cloud computing are shared and accessed commonly among the employees over the internet. Hence, it becomes imperative for the organizations to keep their private and sensitive information safe and secure, maintain the privacy setting, identity management and access control.  

When it comes to cloud security, it refers to a set of control-based technologies and policies designed to adhere to the regulatory compliance rules for protecting the data, application and infrastructure that are linked with the use of cloud computing services.  

Read on to learn about some easy yet effective tips every organization must follow to ensure the security of their data that is transferred online.

1.Know Your Data

Security begins with you! To ensure the data security and its importance, it is important for organizations to understand the value of the information they are storing on cloud. Based on the sensitivity of data being stored, they should segregate it into public data and private/sensitive information. In order to store sensitive information, you can use private cloud services while public cloud services can be used to store variable workloads. Sensitive information would need more security than the public information.  Hence, know your data and use appropriate security controls to protect it. 

2.Keep a Backup of Your Data

Keeping a backup of your data offline might not fall under data security controls but is a great way to protect your important data from losing permanently. While it is very rare thing like Cloud Crashing, technology has its own drawbacks. In such a scenario of cloud crashing when you cannot access your data for hours, keeping a data backup offline can prove to be a boon, especially during emergencies.  Therefore, by keeping backup of all your vital information, you can save your precious data, time and money. 

3.Default Data Protection Services 

When you sign up with any cloud service provider, make sure to check about their data encryption policies. Understand and evaluate the kind of security measures your cloud service provider is offering you to secure your data. Before signing up with a service provider, make sure you read the contract thoroughly and  understand well the level of responsibility the provider is ready to take for functionality, security, and continuity of service. Do not associate in case of any doubt. 

4.Ensure a Strong Password Security 

Passwords are one of the simplest breakthroughs of hackers to access your vital information. While the number of people using password security for data protection is extremely high, choosing a weak password is a big reason why data protected by passwords still gets hacked. Therefore, make sure to choose a password which is difficult to crack. Select a password created with a combination of alphabets, numbers, special symbols, upper case and lower case letters. But, also make sure that the password you created is easy for you to remember.

5.Encrypt Your Data

Encryption is another way to protect your data from intruders. As such, many cloud service providers use strong encryption algorithms to protect their customers’ data. As the owner of the information, you should also append your own encryption layer apart from what your service providers are using. A double layered data encryption will make it difficult for the attackers to steal your data.

6.Use Firewalls & Anti Viruses

Firewalls and Anti viruses have always been good ways to secure data. Choose the right and reliable firewall software in order to safeguard your data from any type of attacks. Since the resources in cloud are shareable, chances are there that your data might get affected by viruses and bugs. Hence, ensure proper firewall and antivirus protection on your data to minimize the chances of losing it.