Cloud data security is a shared commitment between the provider and the user. The cloud provider is liable for protecting the infrastructure, whereas the user is responsible for staying vigilant about their web hosting identity and access.
Implementing a good cloud strategy is not as easy as it sounds. The majority of IT experts encounter difficulty when trying to adopt an effective cloud web hosting strategy, and security contributes to a major portion of that difficulty. Therefore, in this article, we shall look at the top security features to consider when choosing a cloud hosting service.
What is Cloud Data Security?
Cloud data security refers to protocols, tools or various strategies adopted by businesses to protect your cloud environment. These measures aim to secure cloud storage against unauthorised access, malicious attacks and data loss.
Securing your cloud storage works very differently than traditional hosting, as there is no on-premises web server here. A cloud server works over the public network, whereas traditional hosting options depend on the company’s network.
Therefore, using a public network can risk cloud security. Furthermore, it is a multi-tenant network, which also makes it quite vulnerable.
Top Security Features to Look for to Secure Cloud Storage
1. Intrusion Detection and Prevention System
An Intrusion Detection and Prevention System focuses on network security. Basically, it analyses and monitors your network while responding to and protecting its traffic. Therefore, threats are detected and automatically responded to, helping businesses secure their systems.
2. Cloud Access Security Broker
Cloud Access Security Broker is a special tool designed to secure cloud hosting services, especially if you use services from multiple cloud providers. Such services offer a clear view of cloud applications and the data being used, even if you haven’t sanctioned it.
They monitor threats and respond to any unusual behaviour to protect sensitive data. They also help implement policies such as DLP to share data safely.
3. Security Information and Event Management
SIEM is a system that compiles all the data from logs from the complete cloud infrastructure and assembles it in a centralized platform. It is powered by machine learning and AL to analyse the log data and detect any unusual activity.
With the help of this data, you can automate the monitoring and detection of threats in your cloud environment.
4. Data Loss Prevention
Data Loss Prevention helps protect sensitive customer information, including credit card and social security numbers. It categorizes these while ensuring that cloud data is handled according to data protection norms.
Data loss prevention for reducing security risk makes use of various additional methods like tokenization (where a symbol replaces data), masking(where parts of data are hidden) and de-identification (where personal details are removed).
5. Cloud Security Posture Management
Cloud security posture management is a scanning tool that helps identify risky misconfigurations. The tool notifies whenever it finds a wrongly done security configuration that doesn’t match the compliance standard.
Security misconfigurations are a top reason why security breaches happen, as they make your cloud server vulnerable to attacks.
Cloud security posture management tools identify such vulnerabilities and offer immediate remedies according to the stated compliance standard.
Conclusion
Other than cloud backup services, there are several ways in which businesses can adopt cloud data security. Some of the top features one must look for when securing cloud hosting services include an Intrusion Detection And Prevention System, Cloud Access Security Broker, Security Information And Event Management, Disaster Loss Prevention, etc.
So, understand the risk to which your infrastructure is vulnerable and adopt the cloud hosting security services accordingly.
