Cloud security is the protection of data available on the cloud. Cloud security is used to protect cloud computing devices and their data. We know thieves and hackers are everywhere. The data is very sensitive and important. For a company, data is more important than its assets. Data available on the cloud is a place where attackers love to attack and steal the data. If we don’t have cloud security, our data on the cloud is as good as stolen.- Eastrenpeak
Cloud computing is one of the cutting edge technologies we have seen in decades. After the birth of internet cloud computing is a very prominent technology. This technology is attracting both researchers and developers all around the world. We have many technologies like the Internet of Things, Blockchain, Robotics, and many more. But, cloud computing has a great impact on our society that no other technology was able to do.
Cloud security includes multiple methods to secure data available on the cloud. Cloud security includes firewalls, VPNs, penetration testing, data encryption and decryption, obfuscation, avoiding public networks, etc.
If your data is on the cloud, you must implement a special type of security to save your data from attackers. The data is very important for any organization. All the worth of an organization is the data it keeps and stores. For example, millions of people use Paypal to send and receive data all around the world. Their information is stored on the cloud. If some attacker attacks and steals sensitive data. People will lose their trust towards Paypal and will never send or receive payments from it.
We have seen in the past many big companies have high and expensive cloud security. But, still, their data had been stolen in the past. Big companies like Facebook, Amazon have given big penalties for the data breach. Cloud security is an ongoing process that needs to be improved and updated regularly.
It has already been deployed by many organizations to improve security on the user’s behalf. Two way or Three-way authentication factor is a good plus for cloud security. Like after entering the password, the cloud will send you a message with a code, you have to enter the code to enter in your cloud services. Or, like after entering your pin. The cloud asks you to speak a sentence and with voice recognition, it will recognize your voice and open cloud services for you.
Restrict access to the users who can access your cloud services. Only allow the services to the user who he/she is signed up for. Like, if the user is signed to view something, don’t allow him/her to copy, paste, print, edit, etc. options.
It is a very simple but intelligent technique to see all the activities happening on your personal computers as well as on your cloud. It records all the activities done by the user or attacker. When you login to service, log out the service, what you do with the cloud service all things are being recorded and to maintained in a log.
In the past, it has been reported that due to lack of employee training there are many “Fishing Attacks”. It’s a normal scenario that fooling humans is easier than fooling a computer. Let me give you an example, I emailed you “congratulation you have received a bonus from this company. Please enter your account and credit details so we will be able to send you your bonus”. In this scenario, if you are not trained to tackle this situation you will get trapped and will give sensitive information to the attacker.
It’s also a very ingenious way to recover your data if your data is lost or changed by an attacker. If you have a backup of one cloud to some other cloud it will be very easy for you to recover deleted or updated data. In this way, you can always be assured of the authenticity of the data.
You can get more detailed information on cloud security from Ntiva.
It is the most commonly used attack that harms the functionality and availability in this case of cloud. The issue with DDoS attacks is that we cannot track the attacker. As the name suggests the attacker attacks from different machines to a single network and drops the availability of the network. It simply overwhelms the network and then it’s no longer able to respond to the request to the user.
A data breach is a more common attack on cybersecurity than we even think. In the whole world, 1000s of data breaches happen every month. If the data is available locally then we can implement security measures on hardware, software, and internet access points like Routers to secure data. But on the cloud, the hardware, software, and access points restrictions are out of your hands. No, it depends on the cloud security provider to provide security. If it’s not then our data will be branched. We will lose the trust of our clients.
We can lose our data intentionally or unintentionally. Like we accidentally click on delete instead of clicking rename or whatsoever we can lose data. We can lose data by simplifying dropping a drink on our laptop and can lose it. On intentional data loss, an angry or jealous employee can delete the data. He/she has no restriction towards data, if he/she deletes data no one can stop it.
On the cloud side, it is very important to choose the right, reliable and experienced cloud computing provider. That ensures the cloud security of your data. If something happens, the cloud security provider will be responsible for data loss, not you.
Even our data is available on the cloud, but we are accessing the data on our devices. Devices like smartphones, laptops, PCs are still vulnerable to attack. What happens if an attacker attacks you at your address not on the cloud to steal data. Then what happened? Having strong access points like Modems, Routers, etc. should be your priority. Try to have access points from companies like Huawei, Cisco, Nokia, etc. They are major players in this industry and they know how to secure your data.
You can get the more detailed information regarding Cloud Security challenges from CDNetworks.
Data should be protected when users are sending and receiving data. Proper encryption and decryption methods should be implemented. These methods make data transfer secure and reliable.
Assets both hardware and software should be implemented. If a single user with bad asset security is compromised then all data coming towards it will also be compromised.
Whenever the user accesses the cloud, some user identification and authentication protocol should be implemented. This is to identify the user’s authenticity. If not then anyone can access data by the name of a legitimate user.
The authenticity of the information is very important. The information that the user is sending or receiving should be inspected. Some errors or plot holes that the attacker can exploit and get access to the whole network might be detected.
Users are also responsible for cybersecurity. Whenever a user is using services it is their responsibility to secure their account. It can be with the proper password and authentication protocol. It’s up to the user to sign out properly and enable “never save password”. Then if by accident the user forgets to sign out next time he/she again has to enter all the credentials.
You can get more information about cloud security principles from NCSC National Cyber Security Center.
Cloud computing has many benefits, but it also has opened many opportunities for hackers to hijack your credentials. Attackers can use your credentials to operate the cloud on your behalf and can do whatever the attacker desires.
It is the thread that normally people easily ignore. It’s the threat of inside a mole in the organization. An angry or jealous employee can delete the data. He/she has no restriction towards data, if he/she deletes data no one can stop it.
As we know, viruses or malware is a code that a developer created to corrupt or destroy the data. A code can be inserted in your cloud service that gives the command to do a particular thing. This code seems to be part of cloud service but no one might be able to detect it.
It is a place for the user to store anything. It can host websites from the cloud. It can store its data on the cloud. Cloud is giving large spaces in cheap for users to store data easily. It also gives hackers the ability to put malicious code, crappy, and pirated software on it. US law settlement is reaching up to $0.25 million, because of cloud service abuse. It certainly depends upon the issue and damages the attackers have done.
Cloud computing is the name of shared resources between the resource provider and the client. We have major cloud services providers. Like AWS by Amazon, Azure by Microsoft, Google cloud service, IBM cloud service, etc. They all provide cloud security at their best level. They might have some vulnerabilities left. But users should also be very careful while using cloud services.
You can get more detailed information from Imperva and EastrenPeak.
It would be very beneficial for us to use cloud security as a service instead of implementing the whole security protocol. Security implementation is not easy and cheap. Cloud security providers are players in providing security. They normally provide security to 100s of clients at a time. Using cloud security will be beneficial for both the provider and the user. It gives cloud security providers a customer and the customer gets reliable security for cheap.
The most top layer of security is Information security. Cybersecurity is a type of information security. Cloud security is a type of Cybersecurity.
