With the emergence of cloud-based storage services, you don’t need to worry about taking your portable storage devices everywhere. From Dropbox to Google Drive, various cloud solutions keep data online and provide you with easy access from anywhere. This convenience seems tempting, but unfortunately, data uploading to the Cloud can raise security concerns. Best cloud security practices are more important now than ever it was.
However, you can protect data by making some efforts. So, here are 7 best cloud security practices to keep cloud data secure:
Access Control Management
Though cloud platforms offer the right tools, it is up to your organization to establish the proper access controls for data safety. For example, in the case of insider theft, the right access control policies can ensure data safety. Furthermore, it is essential so that no one can access stored data without proper clearance.
Train the Staff
To prevent your access credentials from hackers, organizations should train their workers. They should be able to spot the cyberthreats and how to respond. This training should include basic security knowledge, like creating strong passwords and finding social engineering attacks.
Go Through User Agreements
Remember not to sign up for any cloud service without going through the full user agreement. It contains vital information about how the service protects the critical information and whether you allow them to use or sell your data in any way. Do not sign up for anything without understanding every clause in the agreement.
Encrypt your Data Before Uploading to Cloud
If you want to upload the data to the Cloud, encrypt it first with the help of a third-party tool. Then, upload it. You have to download any cloud-protection app that allows you to apply passwords and generate key sequences to the files before uploading. Even if you opt for an encrypted cloud service, undergoing a preliminary file encryption round won’t be bad.
Perform Penetration and Testing Regular Audits
Whether your organization decides to select a partner for cloud data security needs or not, you should implement regular penetration testing. It will determine if you made sufficient efforts or not. Then combine it with audits to keep tables on the vendor’s capabilities to access logs to ensure that authorized personnel is handling sensitive data.
Pay Attention to Various Cloud Environments
Managing multi-cloud environment security is tricky as data resides on various platforms. As a result, organizations must devise policies based on data rather than the cloud platform to confirm robust safety.
Enable Security Logs
Apart from conducting audits, organizations should allow logging features for cloud solutions. Logging helps system administrators track the users making environmental changes. For example, if a hacker gains access and makes changes, a log will highlight the activities to be rectified.
Misconfigurations are significant threats to Cloud security and logging capabilities to connect the changes leading to any vulnerability. Also, logging allows you to find individual users with more access than they need. So administrators can make proper adjustments in permissions.
Conclusion
Whatever Cloud solution you select, security remains the main responsibility. Therefore, it is essential to have a basic understanding of best practices to avoid cyber attacks. Furthermore, it ensures that all the employees contribute effectively towards enhancing organizational growth by maintaining a secure environment for data.
