Data security is a major issue of concern in most businesses. For this reason, most business people have opted for cloud storage, as this is assumed to be a safe bet and remedy from the security threats. With cloud storage, there are advantages such as flexibility, better collaboration with partners, and better software updates, among others. However, like other storage systems, cloud storage also has its share of security threats.
Nevertheless, unlike the traditional storage system, the security threats in cloud computing are due to configuration and authentication. Either way, not dealing with these security concerns will cost you a fortune. Below are some of these security risks your data is exposed to when you are using the cloud memory.
Breaching of Data
A data breach occurs after confidential information is accessed or stolen by unauthorized personnel. In this case, the unauthorized personnel may access the papertrail that contains sensitive information about the business or your customers. A data breach may make your customers lose trust in you, thus ruining the reputation of the business. In other cases, the data breach may cause loss of funds in the business. To help avoid this, you can improve the authentication techniques or use encryption techniques. On the other hand, avoid sharing over-sensitive information that holds your company on the internet to help reduce risks.
Insufficient Due Diligence
Before working with any cloud vendors, it is important to evaluate them and make sure that they are the right people to handle your cloud data. For this reason, hiring such people to work on your cloud storage without checking their due diligence is exposing your data to risks. Otherwise, you risk hiring somebody who knows little about the cloud storage, thus exposing the log data that you could have in storage to risks. Therefore, before anybody accesses the memory, ensure that they know issues such as papertrail log management and other issues concerning your data to avoid any security threats.
Malware Injections
When your data is in the cloud memory, it risks injections of malicious codes that can be inserted in the cloud memory services. After injection, these codes are viewed as part of the software that is running as part of the cloud servers. This is done by malicious people who will then use the injected malware to help them in other malicious activities such as eavesdropping, stealing, or compromising data integrity in the memory. Therefore, when storing your data in the cloud, come up with techniques that will help you secure your data in the cloud memory from malware injections.
Limited Cloud Usage Visibility
In case a business that has stored data in the cloud memory cannot tell whether activities going on in the cloud are safe or malicious, then there is said to be limited cloud usage visibility. When there is low cloud usage visibility, there is a lack of governance of the papertrail cloud-hosted log management, thus exposing sensitive information to risks. Therefore, schedule training on how to use cloud memory services to all people in the company. Additionally, learn to detect suspicious activity on the memory and rectify it before it is too late.
Hijacking
Cloud memory hijacking occurs when malicious people gain access to the account and, more so, in the most sensitive areas. After the hijacking, the attacker has full access to all parts of the account and can manipulate them as they want. For this reason, hijacking can lead to a high loss of data and other sensitive business information. Therefore, protect your data in the cloud memory through the use of controls such as IAM or Defense-in-Depth, among others. On the other hand, it is advisable to avoid storing oversensitive information about the company in the cloud memory to limit cases of malicious personnel coming across it.
Using The Wrong APIs
Ideally, one can access the data that you have stored in the cloud memory through APIs (Application Programming Interfaces). However, some of the APIs that you may be using will be a threat to some of the security of the data. For instance, if the application programming interface you are using is insecure, then you risk losing the data on the cloud memory. On the other hand, malicious people may take advantage of these application programming interfaces to manipulate some of the information that you have stored on the cloud. To help limit the risks of API, ensure that you always use a trustable API that will not lead to any abnormal activities. On the other hand, the use of a standard API framework also helps reduce the risks that APIs expose the site.
When storing information on the cloud storage, you are probably looking for a cheaper, safer, and more convenient storage method. However, cloud storage also has security threats that you expose your data to when you rely on it. Above are some of the possible security threats in the cloud memory and how you avoid them.