Reasons Why Your Data Can be At Risk

Almost every business you can think of is using cloud services for many of their business applications. Even big IT companies are using different kinds of cloud security solutions to prevent their data from being compromised. 

Every business has tons of sensitive data in the cloud more than ever before. There is no question that the public cloud security services providers that you are familiar with offer a more secure environment than you could ever hope to with your on premise servers. However, even though cloud service providers are fine when it comes to protecting your data, there are still a possibility that they can’t protect your data from when it leaves the cloud to interact with other systems and this type of situation happens in your company on a daily basis, as employees access,transfer or download that data from all sort of devices in all sorts of places to all different people. 

Security breaches are rarely caused by poor cloud information protection -  because they are caused by humans. Stolen credentials, accidental deletions, disgruntled employees, unstable wifi connection and other employee mishaps are the reason that your cloud data is at risk but there are ways that you can do to prevent that from happening. 

1. Manage Your User Access - most employees don’t need access to every application or every piece of file or information your company has. Setting proper levels of authorization ensures that each employee can only view and edit the necessary applications or data for her or him to do their job. Giving user access rights not only helps prevent an employee from accidentally editing information that he or she is not authorized to view but also protects your company from hackers who have stolen an employee’s credentials. If someone who has access to everything gets tricked by a phishing email or an advertisement and provides their login information without hesitating - well the hacker now has the keys to the information of your company. 

2. Monitor or Log User Activities - real time monitoring and analysis of the activities of the users can help you spot irregularities that drift from normal usage patterns e.g., log in from an unknown IP or device. These types of activities could indicate a breach in your system so catching them early on can stop hackers in their tracks and allow you to fix security issues before they can cause chaos.

3. Off-boarding Employees -when employees leave your company, make sure they can no longer access your data, customer information , systems and intellectual properties. Since every employee would likely have access to different cloud applications you may need some sort of a process to ensure that all the access rights for each departing employee are revoked. 

4. Anti-Phishing Training -hackers can gain access to your companies information by stealing employee’s credentials through different social engineering techniques such as spoofing websites, phishing email and social media spying. Offering ongoing training is the best way to prevent employees from falling victim to these kinds of scams and risking your company’s sensitive information.