Cloud Computing is most definitely the buzzword today for all businesses alike. Cloud Computing has surely offered myriad benefits and no doubt that all the organizations have decided to migrate to the cloud for using these highly beneficial cloud services. With thousands of businesses shifting to the cloud, a great benefit enjoyed is the streamlining of IT processes and making daily computing easy and manageable. The need for a physical server data center is eliminated by shifting to the cloud and hence you would require fewer workforces to manage the data; thereby reducing the costs and increasing the productivity of the enterprise. But before you jump into this cloud bandwagon, the aspect of security has to be considered while shifting to the cloud:
Data Security Is A Challenge While Shifting To The Cloud
The foremost criterion when you decide to make the shift is that of cloud security. How can you go about securing the data on the cloud and is your cloud service provider doing enough for it? For that, appropriate planning and designing of the infrastructure are required. You need to know what the data is that is moved into the cloud and what responsibilities stay with you. This is the fundamental work and should be the topmost priority that will be jointly decided by the enterprise and the service provider. The data that is to be moved has to be segregated as per the priority. That means that the data is to be classified as highly confidential, less critical, and so on. This is the most arduous task for enterprises as they continue to grow and data never ceases to pour in.
Need Of Visibility While Shifting To The Cloud
The enterprises need to follow the best practices for securely moving the workloads to the cloud networks, and for that, it is required that they discuss the issue of visibility with the cloud service provider. Only when the enterprises are provided with a transparent system will they know where the data is being stored and where it is moving in the cloud. This helps them to enforce security policies so that any suspicious activity can be detected and acted upon accordingly.
Securely Moving To The Cloud
The biggest challenge of shifting to the cloud is that the data is no longer in control of the enterprises. In cloud computing, all the data is stored externally, outside the office premises and hence it can be said that the enterprises lose hold of control over their data. When in the cloud, the data can be accessed by anyone anywhere provided there is an internet connection and this also gives rise to data theft risks. Definitely, for traditional models, there was no risk as the data was stored in the office premises itself, but it is not scalable and cost-efficient. Here, the cloud is a better option and if the aspect of cloud security is shared by the enterprises and cloud service providers, then there is nothing better than shifting to the cloud securely. The Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB) solution is a great tool to secure data in the cloud, which effectively fills in the gap in the systems running on cloud models. Hence, when enterprises decide to shift to cloud services, they need to first design and plan what data is to be moved and how it is to be stored and processed. Adequate security measures should be in place as the data is being transferred and that should not be an after-thought. The CASB solutions help enterprises to get greater visibility and thus better access control into the system. This is achieved by implementing policies and restrictions on the access of confidential data so that the suspicious data moving out of the cloud can be checked, alerted, reported, and inspected. Also, unauthorized access can be checked for by deploying restriction control on access; thus securing the data from cyber threats. CASB solutions help the enterprises to secure their data and safeguard it from spurious attacks.