SMEs with bootstrap funds and limited industry knowledge are stuck in multiple myths surrounding cloud security that makes their cloud migration journeys cumbersome. With digital transformation taking over all industries globally and remote working turning to be the ‘new normal’ – transitioning to the cloud has become necessary. For successful cloud services implementation, SMEs need to outlive the common cloud security myths limiting their vision and expanding the risk landscape.
Below listed are the most common cloud security myths that all SMEs need to consider, focusing on exploring the truth behind successfully running and securing all enterprise cloud solutions:
Myth 1: The Cloud Is Risky. Why Invest?
The fact is that the cloud is noway inherently unsafe. Cloud technologies are no less safe when used correctly than any typical data center. It is mandatory to consider the incident response mechanisms across the cloud to safeguard from exploitation. Vulnerable customer codes or improper cloud configuration are the careless factors that cause real risks. So, SMEs need to focus on them more than the probable security flaws that could be discovered in the cloud provider’s code or infrastructure.
On average, over 90% of small businesses experience security benefits after transitioning to the cloud. Cloud isn’t risky, and it is undoubtedly an investment worth making. The business is responsible for granting and administrating permissions to customize the cloud environment to eliminate vulnerabilities or escalate enterprise security issues.
Myth 2: The Cloud Provider is Solely Responsible for All Security Requirements
Cloud migration is a ‘shared’ and not any party’s ‘sole’ responsibility. Before investing in any cloud solution, businesses need to be clear about their expectations and responsibilities. The businesses need to control specific aspects of the cloud services while the cloud solution providers carry out the rest. The solution vendor protects the systems post-data upload, while the business ensures that only safe data is processed and uploaded to the cloud. Solutions providers will only outline specific responsibilities for themselves and their clients in their service level agreement (SLA), which should be mutually agreed upon and practiced.
Myth 3: Access Control Isn’t An Issue
In the virtual world, cloud data can be accessed from anywhere — opening the floodgates for the threat actors exploiting the existing cloud deployments. Maintaining a stout access control mechanism over the enterprise cloud environment is critical to prevent unauthorized users from entering the system. Many cloud providers promise advanced access control capabilities out of the box, setting stringent authentication regulations across the entire cloud infrastructure. Still, the actual responsibility to overlook all access control mechanisms lies in the hands of the businesses.
Myth 4: Cloud Multitenancy Expands the Data Risk Landscape
Public cloud environments are advanced multitenant environments, operating diverse users’ cloud data on a shared server. Although they might seem to be risky at first, the reality is that only authorized people have access to their data, even on the public cloud. The cloud providers partition all critical data to restrict access to the user who uploads it. Multitenant cloud environments are no particular case; they are no more or less risky than other storage environments.
Myth 5: The Existing Security Tools Can Seamlessly Integrate With the Cloud
It’s tempting to assume that legacy security tools can handle all cloud solutions’ overall security, but that’s not always true. While specific on-premise security tools expertly support integration with the new cloud solutions, it’s a safe bet that businesses will need to add new security tools to their infrastructure. These could be native security tools offered by the cloud solution vendor or third-party installations.
Myth 6: The Cloud is Already Secure, With No Further Need to Monitor for Security Breaches
In today’s world, security hackers are getting more sophisticated each day – guaranteeing complete security is impossible. Even if the business takes all the required proactive measures to keep the cloud security threats out, specific threats like malware always lurk in the cloud environment. The cloud providers and most third-party vendors thankfully offer competitive cloud monitoring tools to track down suspicious cloud mishaps or threats. Businesses can implement cloud monitoring solutions for security, but tracking those tools’ performance is equally vital.
Conclusion
When businesses migrate to the cloud, the benefits are not only limited to the agility offered by cloud solutions but way beyond it. Cloud migration also creates several negative tensions, mainly due to the inexperience of collaborating with cloud solutions. This combination of incredible benefits vs. the restricting pressures has created such myths about the cloud in SMEs’ minds. Businesses must be competent to outlive these challenges to unveil the benefits of adopting the cloud and tapping all unexplored business expansion avenues for future success.
To learn more about cloud security, visit: www.rapyder.com/aws-cloud-security-service-provider/
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