Security is both a benefit and a concern for enterprises when it comes to cloud computing. On the one hand, Datamation found in its State of the Cloud, 2019 survey that many organizations are moving to the cloud because they found that cloud-service providers (CSPs) offer better all-around security than they could achieve by themselves. Specifically, Datamation noted that CSPS “not only hire the top security experts, they have a lot more data to use for machine learning, to proactively stop security threats.”

On the other hand, the cloud sparks privacy and data concerns for many organizations. Seventy-seven percent of respondents to RightScale’s 2018 State of the Cloud Report said cloud security was their top challenge, for example. Along those same lines, nine in ten security professionals who responded to a 2018 Crowd Research Partners survey said they were worried about achieving and maintaining security in the cloud.

Organizations clearly want to enjoy the cloud for its security benefits. Before they can do that, however, they need to familiarize themselves and craft a proper response to some of the most salient cloud-based threats. Let’s help them by examining four of these risks below.

1. Data Breach

With organizations turning to the cloud to store business-critical data, bad actors are increasingly looking to compromise cloud service providers. It’s no surprise why. A successful hack could net them the personal and/or financial information for hundreds and millions of users. They could then abuse those to commit identity fraud or monetize them on the dark web. Such exposure could damage affected companies’ reputations and force them to assume responsibility for legal fees, complimentary identity monitoring subscriptions and replacement payment cards.

The threat of a cloud data breach is troubling because organizations are ultimately responsible for protecting their customers’ information regardless of (Read more...)