How To Protect Business Data in the Cloud

The amount of data that any business creates, stores, and uses daily varies. To give you an idea of data volumes, one study found that a company with 10 employees working just three hours each day would generate 180 Gigabytes of data daily. The study assumes that much of the data is overwritten or deleted. However, this means a small company still creates a lot of data, and much of it will be stored or shared via the cloud. Some of that data will be personal or sensitive, protected by the laws of one or more countries. Further data will be proprietary and Intellectual Property (IP). Whatever form your company data takes, it needs to be protected.

What is Cloud Data Protection?

Cloud data protection is a discipline that provides a set of best practices used to ensure that company and customer data are secure. This is essential in an era where cybercriminals target data in the cloud. According to CrowdStrike, there has been a 75% increase in intrusions into cloud environments.

Protecting cloud data becomes more challenging when companies use a mix of cloud services. Research shows that 80% of businesses use both public and private clouds, and 78% use more than three public clouds. These complex setups can create security gaps if protections are not applied everywhere. Problems grow when security tools do not work across all environments.

Another compounding factor in robust cloud data security is the increasing use of Shadow SaaS apps. These are apps used by employees that are unsanctioned by the company's IT department. Employees may use SaaS apps to create and share company data. Because these apps are outside the control of company security measures, the data is usually not properly protected.

All of these features of modern cloud computing have led to distributed data that can be difficult to identify, visualise, control, and protect.

Cloud data protection has, therefore, evolved into a series of processes and measures for handling complex cloud infrastructures.

Why Protect Data in the Cloud?

Data is an asset that drives business. As such, it is as important to protect against harm as any business asset. The following core reasons give credence to cloud data protection:

Business Continuity

Businesses run on data. The types of data reflect the myriad types of businesses, from customer data used to process orders to data used for manufacturing operations to data that helps doctors make diagnoses, and so on. If anything disrupts access to business data or causes it to be maliciously modified, business operations can stall. Ransomware, for example, is typically used to encrypt a company's data, rendering it impossible for the organization to continue operating. Organizations often close their doors when faced with ransomware infections. Cloud data protection helps mitigate the impact of cyberattacks, such as ransomware, ensuring business continuity. The protective mechanisms also help prevent accidental exposure of data, which can also impact business operations.

Standards and Regulations

There are many laws and regulations across the world that require robust cloud data protection. Examples include the EU's GDPR, various US-based privacy and security regulations, such as CCPA, and HIPAA. Adhering to regulatory compliance not only reduces the chances of a successful data breach but also ensures your company does not incur the hefty fines associated with noncompliance with regulations like GDPR. These regulations are enforced. Noncompliance can also lead to successful class actions against companies found to violate data protection regulations.

Data Protection

As well as regulatory compliance and business continuity, the general discipline of protecting cloud data is important on many levels. Good business practices include robust security. Customers lose trust in companies that do not protect their data. A company's reputation can be damaged by data breaches. Data protection demonstrates to customers and clients that your company prioritizes security and the prevention of cybercrime. Data protection also demonstrates your commitment to preventing accidental data exposure.

Threats to Cloud Data

The threat landscape is broad and complex. New threats that involve AI and clever evasive tactics create a fluid environment where cybercriminals exploit any gap in security. However, the most common areas where cloud data confidentiality and integrity are at risk are as follows:

Unauthorized Access

Unauthorized access to data is the ideal route into a database or other data-rich account. Cybercriminals prefer to walk in the door rather than hack their way in. Login credentials are a key target, with techniques such as phishing, social engineering, and account hijacking providing entry points into a company's network. Once a hacker has hold of login credentials, they can use common tools to escalate the privileges of even basic employee accounts to give them admin access. The CrowdStrike report found that half of all cloud attacks are identity-based.

Accidental Data Exposure

Accidents are all too common in a company. Accidental data exposure can occur from simple misdirection of an email or sharing a password with a colleague. The use of cloud apps and Shadow apps without robust protection can increase the likelihood of accidental data exposure.

AI apps are contributing to the risk of accidental data exposure. If an employee pastes company secrets, such as proprietary information or source code snippets, into an AI app, it remains in that app with little to no security to protect it. Many surveys and reports identify human error as a cause for concern with regard to data exposure. Mimecast's State of Human Risk report has found that 81% of companies are worried about sensitive data leaks via GenAI tools.

Malware

Malware is behind many data breaches. Malware such as infostealers and ransomware is specifically used to steal data. Much of this stolen data ends up on dark web marketplaces for sale. Stolen data is used to extort ransoms and carry out follow-on attacks.

Insider Threats

Insiders can be malicious or accidental. One way malicious insiders can steal or manipulate cloud data is by abusing privileges. Providing employees with privileges to access data should be done with caution, allowing them to access only the data they need to perform their jobs. The Mimecast survey found that 43% of companies have experienced an increase in internal threats, with 66% expecting that data loss from insiders will increase at their organization.

Data Breaches

Data breaches also occur from simple misconfigurations. Something as simple as having poor password protection can lead to data theft. A recent database breach that exposed 2.7 billion records was caused by the lack of password protection. Cloud storage has come under scrutiny in recent years as insecurely configured Amazon S3 buckets hit the headlines.

A freelance agency for doctors experienced a potential breach affecting the health and personal details of 3,200 individuals because of an unsecured AWS S3 bucket. Google Cloud storage buckets have also made headlines after the Fitify fitness app suffered a breach involving credit card authorization forms. The forms were unintentionally accessed via a misconfigured cloud storage bucket.

Insecure APIs

Cloud applications utilize APIs to connect to other services and enhance their capabilities. Cloudentity found that 44% of organizations have experienced API security issues resulting in data leaks and data privacy issues.

How To Protect Data in the Cloud?

Protection of cloud data is not a single-point solution. Instead, an organization must follow a series of best practices that provide a defense-in-depth approach to cloud data security:

• Shared Responsibility Model: A cloud service provider (CSP) and the company that uses their services share the responsibility for security. Ensure that you select a CSP with a strong reputation for security.
• Security policies: Create data security and cloud security policies as a template for best practices.
• Visibility: You can't protect what you don't know about. Shadow Apps, GenAI apps, and dispersed data from remote working environments can create invisible data. Cloud data visibility tools allow an organization to identify, track, and monitor all cloud environment assets, configurations, and activities.
• Manage shadow apps and devices: Shadow apps and devices must be identified and brought under organizational controls to ensure security is optimized. Mobile Device Management (MDM) solutions help to identify and manage all endpoints. Identity services from vendors like AccessOwl can help eliminate shadow apps.
• Identity management and zero trust: Most data breaches have an element of identity misuse. To prevent this cyberattack technique, ensure that your organization implements a robust identity management program. This should include access control measures such as multi-factor authentication (MFA), privileged access management, and implementing a zero-trust identity approach. Zero trust always verifies a user when they attempt to access sensitive data.
• Continuous monitoring: Cloud environments should be continuously monitored. The monitoring tools will identify and log any unusual activity and send an alert to authorized team members.
• Data encryption: All data that is created or shared using cloud (and on-premise) environments must be encrypted.
• Security awareness training: Accidental data exposure and attackers who socially engineer employees will continue to occur unless employees are trained to identify patterns of risky behavior. Security awareness training campaigns help to educate employees about the dangers of certain actions and how phishing and social engineering attacks work. The training empowers employees to help prevent security incidents, which, in turn, helps develop a culture of security across the company.
• Cybersecurity training: Staff responsible for implementing, maintaining, and managing various aspects of a company's cloud and on-premises infrastructure should receive cybersecurity training. This training focuses on IT staff to help them identify and avoid security vulnerabilities and prevent misconfiguration of apps and services that lead to cloud data exposure and theft.
• Penetration testing: The threat landscape is always changing. An organization should consider conducting regular penetration testing of its cloud infrastructure, related services, and websites to ensure they are secure. These Pen tests should include a vulnerability assessment and scan for security gaps.

As the adoption of cloud computing continues to grow, protecting business data in the cloud has become a pressing concern. Cyber threats have increased in volume. These threats are often evasive and assisted by AI. The resulting threat landscape poses a significant risk to cloud data, making it vulnerable to a security breach. Protecting cloud-based data is not about using a point solution. Securing data across multi-cloud environments requires a defense-in-depth approach to ensure that, regardless of the technique or tactic used to circumvent security, cloud data receives the best possible protection.

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