Cloud has become the most auspicious term for businesses. Though there’s a spectacular rise in cloud-based applications and services, along with their adoption by enterprises to a great extent. Security still remains a significant concern for several organizations.
The misconception that the cloud isn’t as secure as it looks when compared with on-premise capabilities is the crux of the matter. BT recently did a global study that reports, 76% of large organizations quoted security as their main concern for using cloud-based services. 49% admitted being “very” or “extremely anxious” about the security complications of these services.
But is this the real situation? Is cloud leaving the physical estate of an organization in danger? As per Gartner, the real fact is that “most breaches continue to involve on-premises data center environments”. Also, the increasing volume and growing interest of media outlets in cybercrime are leading enterprises to think about the security of applications, data, and users in the cloud.
Due to this, their ability to recognize and consider these risks and create suitable security measures has hampered and given rise to several security myths.
Let’s look at the myths of cloud security –
- The Cloud is Insecure –
Research doesn’t support the perception of organizations that the cloud gives birth to more breaches or that private clouds are less attacked than public clouds. The situation is that non-cloud systems are at greater risk of malware attacks than the systems in the cloud.
It’s been observed that hypervisors and VLANs that come under cloud technology used on-premise as well as in the cloud are so strong that practically these are impossible to break.
Logically thinking, if there would have been a fault in these technologies then it would have affected both non-cloud as well as cloud platforms. Public clouds since are “outside the corporate firewall” are perceived to be insecure.
You do have an attack risk if on the network since it’s an age of unlimited network. And decreased efficiency of perimeter firewalls then the location doesn’t matter.
“Tenant error” – another part of the myth. Businesses have the phobia of sharing a cloud platform or you can say the multi-tenant resource pooling fear that shares storage, computing. And network amongst tenants that are non-related. Yet, today it has become a mature approach and is being widely accepted by government organizations that are hostile to risks.
- Data location in the Cloud isn’t under your control –
Is your business located globally? If yes, then it’s obvious that your data travels all around the world. And until you have your own data centers in other countries. You will have to depend on the CSPs operating locally.
Though you need these providers, your data location is still under your control. That means ultimately it’s your responsibility to follow local data protection regulations.
If you want to know where your data is traveling, your provider must keep transparency with you. It’s essential to know whether your data is secure when stored and while in transit.
You can opt for global CSPs instead of local ones since they operate data centers in multiple countries. With this, you will get transparency and also, your provider will understand local regulations.
- Cloud Security is “simple” –
Security is simple in the cloud because it is under user control in terms of the private cloud. Also, when it comes to the public cloud, security policies are controllable by IT organizations which include identity and access management without depending on the cloud service provider’s security team.
Apart from this, visibility is more crucial as achieving views across cloud and non-cloud systems becomes difficult for organizations especially where there is interaction between the systems.
In order to simply resolve the cloud security issue, it becomes significant to purchase a security or IT management technology. But if you buy a product for security, it might make the situation more complex.
- Being on-premise would be simple –
Perimeter security defenses like firewalls that block/allow network traffic based on protocols haven’t been automated for several years till today. Still, people think that they are safe with their firewalls. Those people and processes that aren’t comfortable. With the cloud stay on-premise with an approach that it’s safe since we know what we are doing.
This fact completely contradicts the data breach report from the last few years. Breaches did by human hacking, not network hacking. This means though you change the location of applications, it won’t save you from hacking.
However, when your cloud security capabilities lack, the above idea can be true. If you give access to account credentials to the organization’s staff. Or don’t apply the latest cloud security practices, it’s surely safe to be on-premise.
Conclusion –
So, if you want to effectively manage cloud security it’s essential to debunk the myths and establish your organization’s unique security measures for ensuring operational management of risks.