How secure is the cloud?

There is a common misconception that the cloud is not as secure as on-premise infrastructure. Even with a significant increase in cloud adoption over the last year, many organisations believe that keeping their data on site is safer than migrating it to the cloud.

In fact, you might find your data is more secure in the cloud. Protecting your data on premise is no easy task. A firewall doesn’t stop you getting hacked it’s the people who deploy that firewall and manage it that prevent data breaches. If you haven’t got the right in-house expertise, or cyber security services, your on premise infrastructure is vulnerable. Migrating your data to the cloud will provide many of the resources and skills you are currently missing. In Verizon’s 2020 Data Breach Investigations Report, cloud assets accounted for 24% of breaches, compared to 70% of on-prem assets.   

Cloud providers like Microsoft give you access to cyber security tools, best practice and governance protocols, continually updating their solutions to protect customers from evolving threats. 

The cloud is still a target for cyber criminals 

Of course, the cloud is still a target. In 2020 cloud-based attacks rose by 630% between January and April, as cyber criminals took advantage of vulnerabilities created by the pandemic and remote work. The most common threat vectors for cloud-based attacks are compromised credentials and misconfigured cloud servers.

In the video below, Gary Duke explains how the cloud is a Shared Responsibility Platform so it’s down to you as a business to make sure that the access to your data and systems is secure. 

According to Verizon’s findings, misconfigurations are the fastest-growing risk to web application security. Misconfiguration errors have increased significantly since 2017, from below 20% to over 40% of total breaches covered; now more common than malware and outranked only by hacking.   

How to secure your data in the cloud 

To get the security benefits of the cloud it’s important to make sure your cloud is configured by experts, regularly audited, updated and patched. As Gary says, it’s a Shared Responsibility Platform so the configuration and management of the cloud is shared between your organisation and your service provider. 

If you’re a Microsoft customer using 365, check your Microsoft Secure Score to understand your organisation’s vulnerabilities across identity, devices, information, apps, and infrastructure. Find out more about Microsoft Secure Score here >

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