Is your sensitive data safer in the office or the cloud?
Cloud’s security and threat management abilities are growing and changing on-premise security solutions.
Cloud providers are becoming progressively more crucial to business’ data security strategy and, while IT departments still need to own their overall strategy, many do not understand how to manage a threat-intelligence and info-sharing program.
IT threats include Data breaches, Compromised credentials and broken authentication, Hacked interfaces, Account hijacking, Malicious insiders, Permanent data loss, Cloud service abuses and Denial Of Service attacks.
On-Premise Server Security
Local servers afford a business a few advantages such as increased control over critical data, however, inflexible IT budgets can create a struggle to develop the security expertise required to keep business’ data secure.
On-Premise Security requires a significant initial dollar investment in Hardware, Software, and associated Licensing.
Most businesses are now operating in a hybrid environment with Microsoft applications, while incrementally moving users to the cloud.
Cloud Security
Cloud computing offers many benefits, however, there are a variety of security risks that need to be considered in a risk assessment.
Risks will vary depending on the sensitivity of the data and how effective the cloud vendor’s security system is; due to the vast amount of data stored on cloud servers, they become an attractive target.
Cloud computing operates with shared infrastructure, platforms, and applications, and if a vulnerability arises in any of these layers, it affects everyone.
“A single vulnerability or misconfiguration can lead to a compromise across an entire provider’s cloud,” says a 2016 report by the Cloud Security Alliance.
Users’ data is stored in an approved location unknown to the end user and may be susceptible to overseas laws and regulations.
By working with the right cloud provider, the task of securing your enterprise’s sensitive data can be made easier.
Cloud users do have some significant advantages when it comes to security:
Providers typically prioritise security higher and invest more resources than the average enterprise by putting robust security controls in place.
Cloud providers can leverage security best practices with one customer across their entire customer base, as they learn from being involved in more cyber-attacks, resulting in tighter controls than IT departments.
Businesses must balance the benefits of cloud computing with the security risks associated with entrusting their business continuity and data to a vendor.
Deciding on a Vendor
When deciding on a vendor the severity of the risk depends on the sensitivity of the data to be stored, how the cloud service managed, and its use by the end user.
Businesses should compare these risks with a risk assessment against those of using in-house computer systems.
The contract between a company and vendor must address security risks, and cover who has access to the client’s data and the security measures used to protect it.
These agreements must be written down in the SLA or another contract.
Microsoft Office 365
Microsoft has large, sophisticated security teams that spend time working to prevent intrusions to their cloud applications.
Businesses are given privacy control and visibility into where their data resides as well as who has access to it.
Office 365 is regularly updated to improve security and boasts a high level of data protection due to a broad scope of threat intelligence, small breach boundaries, and transparency.
Office 365 also employs a cross-application security model, which enables greater automation and decreased human intervention as well as better anomaly detection due to uniformity and simplicity.
With cloud computing services from Leap Consulting and Microsoft Office 365, working on the go has never been simpler – you can effectively communicate, collaborate and stay up-to-date, no matter where your business takes you.
