A lot of clients are asking about the risks of migrating their business to the cloud. We picked up this article from Converge Tech Media that summarizes, not only the risks but also how to mitigate them. Enjoy!
Why do businesses move to the cloud?
There are a lot of reasons companies are increasingly taking their data to the cloud. Some want to decrease the size of their data centers, while others want to increase productivity. In addition, utilizing the cloud’s advantages can give many businesses a digital edge. For example, a cloud solution can drive down IT costs while allowing a company to become more responsive to customer needs and wants.
Cloud migration includes moving your company’s infrastructure, resources, and data from their on-premises location into the virtual cloud. The benefits of cloud computing are many from networking to storage – an all of this is flexible towards scale requirements, while being on demand.
Once your organization executes the migration to the cloud, it can immediately transform the way your business operates. For instance, it can free up valuable resources and time from need to hire fewer IT personnel to having access to your data anywhere with an Internet connection. As a result, migrating your data to the cloud provides an instant backup and recovery solution in the event of an unexpected disaster. There isn’t any doubt that knowledge, and data, are your company’s currency.
Furthermore, your organization can get more done with less downtime. For all of these advantages, there are also risks to migrating to the cloud. Keep reading to learn more about the cons, and how you can secure your company’s valuable data.
Failure to Meet Compliance Requirements
Very few organizations understand how various policies can affect cloud services. Moreover, there are many small companies without access to dedicated legal counsel. So, it can become a complex task trying to determine if they are in compliance with the GDPR. In fact, some companies rely on their cloud hosting provider to sort out the compliance issues for them.
For instance, regulations such as HIPPA requires companies to maintain a specific level of privacy and security for client information. As you can see, it is critical to understand whether your cloud service provider adheres to your company’s compliance requirements.
Loss of Sensitive Data
To be fair, cloud service providers continue to improve their security controls across the board. There isn’t any question that cyber security is a serious business, and cloud service providers must make security a priority if they wish to maintain both their reputation and their business. Nonetheless, ransomware attacks have doubled every year – and many businesses have become increasingly vulnerable.
Then, there is also the threat of human error accidentally deleting your company’s data. What to do? To prevent from data loss, make sure your cloud service provider has an option for data backup, restoration, and failover. On your end, backup all your important data on disks or with another cloud service provider.
Insider Threats
Another risk, of migrating your data to the cloud, comes in the form of insider attacks. This can include unexpected data loss from theft by employees of your cloud service provider. Yet, it can also be unintentional, such as an employee accidentally sharing your files with confidential information. While it seems this is a rare scenario, around 94 percent of all companies are victims of a minimum of one insider attack per month.
To illustrate, when an employee leaves for a competing company, they may download your data from a cloud application. To reduce this risk, improve your access controls by utilizing multi-factor authentication. Also, limit the number of users allowed to access your most sensitive data.
Data Breach
One of the most common threats to migrating your data to the cloud are data breaches. If you read technology news, it seems there is a new data breach every day. These are risks your company can’t afford to take. Yet, technology breaches have become a billion-dollar industry for cybercriminals who work in the sale and trade of your data.
Even companies as large as Amazon have had their cloud servers hacked when criminals found unsecure loopholes in their system. To help to mitigate this risk, verify every security feature offered by your cloud service provider. Make sure your cloud host has a security track record of success.
In Conclusion
While there are many obvious benefits of migrating your data to the cloud from cost savings, to effective resource allocation, to scalability, and convenient access – there are also many risks that deserve your attention. Always make it a priority to understand how your cloud service provider protects your data, and have a backup plan anyway.
