7 Cloud security best practices to protect your data
If you’re one of many organizations that have fully adopted cloud computing, your need to implement strong cloud security measures has become more critical than ever. Cloud security ensures that data and applications hosted in the cloud are protected from cyberthreats. And the potential risks associated with using cloud services are simply too great and wide-ranging to ignore. According to IBM’s Cost of a Data Breach Report 2022, 45% of breaches are cloud-based.
As you store more sensitive information in the cloud, your risk of data loss or exposure increases, which is why it’s essential to understand the best measures and strategies to safeguard data in the cloud.
How can you protect against cloud security threats?
The goal of most cyberattacks today is to disrupt the normal flow of activities and operations in your system. To prevent these threats from compromising your environment, you need to implement the following security measures:
1. Develop a backup and disaster recovery strategy
A backup and disaster recovery (BDR) strategy is a crucial element of cloud security, as it provides the necessary protection against unexpected outages or other disasters that can cause costly downtime and data loss. Without a BDR plan in place, your organization is at risk of losing all of your data in the cloud, which could have a severe financial impact. Your BDR strategy should be well documented and regularly tested to ensure that it won’t fail in case of an actual disaster.
2. Implement strong authentication methods
Implementing two-factor authentication (2FA) or multifactor authentication (MFA) can help ensure that only authorized users are able to access sensitive data and applications in your cloud services and applications. 2FA and MFA add an additional layer of protection for your cloud environment, helping to prevent malicious actors from infiltrating accounts and systems.
3. Leverage encryption technologies
Encryption protects data stored in the cloud by making it unreadable and inaccessible without the necessary keys or passwords. As such, it’s an essential component of any cloud security strategy, keeping malicious actors from gaining unauthorized access to sensitive information.
Cloud encryption can be used in a variety of ways, including in transit (during data transfer) and at rest (while the data is stored). Your organization should also consider using key management solutions to ensure that encryption keys are properly managed and stored securely.
4. Enforce access controls
Role-based access control (RBAC) is a security mechanism that restricts access to data or applications based on a user’s role or job function within an organization. By doing so, RBAC helps prevent data breaches and insider threats. It also helps to simplify the management of access control by providing a centralized system for assigning and revoking access rights to certain resources.
5. Revisit and update cloud security policies
Cloud security policies should be regularly reviewed and updated to ensure that they reflect the current state of a company’s IT environment. It also pays to implement automated tools for monitoring policy compliance and alerting teams when changes are needed. This is one way to guarantee that cloud security policies remain effective and in line with best practices.
6. Monitor user activity for suspicious behavior
Monitoring user activity for suspicious behavior allows organizations to identify and address potential threats and malicious actors before they can cause significant damage.
7. Deploy endpoint security solutions
Endpoint security solutions offer advanced protection against hackers, malware, ransomware, and other malicious threats that target your systems. They provide an extra layer of defense by creating a secure perimeter around endpoints, such as PCs and mobile devices.
By following these steps, you can protect your data and applications from various cyberthreats while ensuring a secure cloud environment. Consult NetWize’s team of cybersecurity professionals on how to fortify your cloud environment. Get in touch with us today.
