Data Security in the Cloud: What Can You Do?

Top IT executives are most concerned about security in the cloud. One of the fastest-growing technologies, cloud computing offers a variety of benefits including flexibility, cost savings, and accessibility. However, there are many security concerns that arise around the cloud, and this is the main reason why enterprises hesitate to move to the cloud.

#1: Organizations are concerned about losing data stored in the cloud

#2: Cloud computing is at risk due to threats to data privacy

#3: Cloud computing integrity is threatened by breaches of confidentiality

As new and more sophisticated digital threats emerge nearly every day, security has become increasingly important. For every new technology created, there are multiple exploitable vulnerabilities.

• Tenable Research reveals over 40 bn records were exposed globally in 2021 (reference article published on business-standard.com)
• Data Breaches Affected Nearly 6 Billion Accounts in 2021 (reference article published on technewsworld.com)

Tips to keep your Cloud data secure

1. Application Gateway with WAF: Application Gateway is a web traffic load balancer that enables you to manage traffic to your web applications. Application Gateway can make routing decisions based on additional attributes of an HTTP request, for example, URL path or host headers. We can deploy Web Application Firewall (WAF) on Azure Application Gateway or WAF on Azure Front Door Service to make it more secure.
2. Protect the data using encryption: Data encryption at rest and in motion is critical. For example, AES-256 encryption should be used. Enhanced data protection with encryption at all transport layers, secure file shares, and communications.
3. Key Vault should be used to Securely store and tightly control access to tokens, passwords, certificates, API keys, and other secrets. For example, Azure Key Vault can be used as a Key Management solution. Azure Key Vault makes it easy to create and control the encryption keys used to encrypt your data.
4. Multi-factor Authentication (MFA) is an excellent way to secure your logins. These include passwords, security questions, apps that authenticate, OTPs, calls, and even biometric data.
5. DevSecOps and Automation: Organizations that have adopted the highly automated DevOps CI/CD culture must ensure appropriate security controls are identified and embedded in code and templates as early as possible in the development process. 
6. Zero Trust: In cloud security, zero trust means not automatically trusting anyone or anything within or outside of the network and verifying (i.e., authorizing, inspecting, and securing) everything. For example, promotes a least privilege governance strategy whereby users are only given access to the resources they need to perform their duties.
7. Implement Email Security System: Many cyberattacks, such as phishing and malware attacks, begin with an email. Clicking on a malicious link in an email allows the malware to be downloaded and cybercriminals to gain access to your data and systems. Having an effective Email Security System in place will help prevent this situation. 
8. Ensure Software and OS Patches are updated. It's a very common and obvious measure that's often overlooked. In recent years, the majority of large-scale attacks have taken advantage of systems and devices that have been left vulnerable due to ignored updates. The purpose of patches is to address critical vulnerabilities.

These tips will help you keep your data secure. However, these should be seen as the first steps towards data security.