Categories
Businesses have begun to rely more on cloud computing to store their data. But when do they reach the point that it becomes unsafe? The more technologically advanced the world gets, the greater the risk of a cloud breach. And the consequences can be devastating. That’s why it’s important to know how to protect your business data from cloud breaches.
Table of Contents
What are Cloud Breaches?
A cloud breach is a form of cyber-attack where those with authorized access try to get access to confidential data stored within the cloud-based system. Sensitive data can range anywhere from employee records to proprietary business data.
Several types of cloud breaches can affect your business data safe:
- Account Hijacking: Account Hijacking is when a hacker tries to access a user profile or a specific employee account to get access to data to steal or sell.
- Malware Injection: A malware injection is when a hacker could input a virus to infect a cloud-based system and steal data.
- Data Leak: A data leak is unintentionally exposing data due to irresponsible cloud settings. That is mainly due to human error.
The impact of a data breach within a cloud system can be minor but also very severe. These issues range from financial losses to major losses to the business due to legal complications. Once a customer’s data is involved, legal repercussions could even involve lawsuits from the customers affected or harmed.
How Do They Occur?
If you believed cyberattacks to be third-party attacks, you were wrong. Data breaches can be a result of many factors:
Human Error
One of the main reasons data breaches occur is because of very weak front-line security. These include very weak and similar passwords by employees across all devices. There may be accidental data sharing, meaning that files were shared with people who were not supposed to have access to them because their job did not require it.
Lastly, your IT department may have failed to patch any identifiable vulnerabilities. These human errors can only be avoided through education on current threats and all the updated available ways to stay protected.
Insider Threats
Did you know one of the many reasons that cyber-attacks occur is due to political reasons? That could be a conflict between powerful corporations trying to devalue the other company. Companies are always willing to pay others to get a hand at other corporations’ insider information.
These can include people within the company selling information to competitors to either be malicious or for a specific financial gain.
Cyber Attacks
Cybercriminals often target cloud-based systems with sophisticated attacks. They have proper equipment and strategies, including malware injections, social engineering attacks, and phishing scams. It can be avoided if you train your employee staff well to identify such scams and stay away from them. They can be identified earlier and fought back once you have well-equipped cyber security services.
How to Protect Business Data from Cloud Breaches
Choose a Reliable Cloud Service Provider
When deciding to migrate to a cloud computing system, you must ensure it is safe. Hence, when choosing a service provider, easy accessibility should be a major contributor to the choice but also look at other customer experiences. Choose providers with a history of protecting customer data through strong security protocols and regular security audits as well!
Strong Access Controls
As mentioned earlier, employee irresponsibility is one of the main reasons data breaches occur in the cloud. They put in weak or no passwords for data protection. Similarly, emails or data must be shared without any specification of confidentiality. You must ensure strong access controls in the form of identity and access management programs.
Monitor and Update Security Protocols
Regularly monitoring and updating your security protocols is critical in ensuring the continued protection of your data. That includes patching security vulnerabilities, regularly auditing your system for potential threats, and training employees on security best practices.
Conclusion
Whether you’re a small or a large business, you must protect yourself from a cloud breach. Being a smaller business, you may not have the finances or the resources to make for damage control after something malicious has been done. As a result, it is better to invest in preventative strategies so it never comes to that point where you must pay for ransomware for your data with money you don’t have.
Read more: Maximizing Efficiency with Power Automate: Best Practices
