Why You Should Prioritize Cloud Data Security

The rate of cyberattacks is constantly increasing, targeting businesses big and small with devastating precision. The repercussions of data breaches extend far beyond immediate financial loss, potentially causing lasting damage to a company's reputation and customer trust. Amidst this backdrop, cloud data security offers advanced protection that often surpasses traditional on-premise defenses. With the cloud, businesses gain access to top-tier security features, such as state-of-the-art encryption and ongoing compliance with industry regulations—essentials in a world where compliance and certification have become mandatory. In this blog, we’ll unpack why transitioning to cloud data security is a strategic defense.

Understanding the Threat Landscape

The threat of cyberattacks looms larger than ever. The U.S. manufacturing industry has felt this surge acutely, with at least 437 ransomware attacks in 2022 alone, more than double the previous year, as reported by cybersecurity firm Dragos. This alarming statistic is a reminder that no sector is immune to digital dangers.

Moreover, the financial implications of cyber incursions are staggering. By 2025, the cost of cybercrime is projected to hit a colossal $10.5 trillion annually, marking a 15% year-over-year increase, according to insights from Cybersecurity Ventures. It's a call to action for businesses of every size to fortify their defenses.

Recent high-profile cyberattacks underscore the urgency. The cyberattack on Communications & Power Industries (CPI), a global manufacturer of electronic components and subsystems, primarily supporting communication and defense sectors, is just one example of the vulnerabilities even high-security sectors face. CPI, which serves critical clients, including the US Department of Defense and the DoD’s DARPA, experienced a ransomware attack that encrypted their data, demanding a $500,000 payment. The attack, which likely originated from a phishing attempt, led to a widespread system shutdown, affecting thousands of computers across the company's network. Despite the general advice against paying ransoms, CPI made the difficult decision to pay, underlining the dire circumstances companies can find themselves in when faced with such breaches.

Semikron, a German power electronics manufacturer, also fell victim to a cyberattack, resulting in the partial encryption of their IT systems and files. Employing 3,000 people across 24 subsidiaries globally, Semikron's products are integral to motor drives and industrial automation systems. This incident highlights the escalating threat to critical infrastructure and the manufacturing supply chain.

Other notable breaches in 2023 have emphasized the pervasive risk across various sectors. The mass hack of file transfer tool, MOVEit, affected over 200 organizations and 17.5 million individuals, including federal agencies. T-Mobile faced its ninth data breach since 2018, compromising the personal information of millions of customers. Yum! Brands, the parent company of KFC, Taco Bell, and Pizza Hut, also experienced a cyberattack, impacting employee data and causing significant operational disruptions. Even ChatGPT, known for its AI capabilities, was not immune, suffering a breach that compromised user data.

These incidents collectively paint a picture of a threat landscape that is not only growing more complex but also more costly and damaging. 

Consequences of Cloud Data Breaches

The fallout from a cloud data breach can be varied. Imagine waking up to find that the very foundation of your company's innovation—its intellectual property—has been stolen. This theft represents a loss of countless hours of work and ingenuity and jeopardizes future developments and profits. This isn't merely about losing a file or two—it's about losing the core of your competitive edge in the marketplace. Your company's trade secrets—formulas, designs, prototypes, and proprietary processes—can fall into the wrong hands, leading competitors or bad actors to replicate your products and undercut, or even beat, your market with your own inventions. The strategic positioning of your company can be compromised, and you might be facing decreasing stock value.

The data breaches further shatter the trust that took years to build with your customers. The relationship you've nurtured is endangered as clients question the safety of their personal information in your hands. Your brand becomes associated with vulnerability and negligence. This reputational damage and erosion of trust can lead to a significant exodus of customers, directly impacting your bottom line.

The financial repercussions extend beyond the immediate loss of revenue. Fines and penalties for failing to protect data can be substantial, draining resources that could have been invested in growth or innovation. The legal ramifications can tie up your company for years, diverting focus from your core business activities.

Operationally, security incidents bring your business to a grinding halt. Systems may need to be taken offline, disrupting the workflow until the breach is contained and investigated. This causes a loss of productivity and allows competitors to move in on your market share.

Preventive Measures and Best Practices for Cloud Data Protection

So, how do you protect your company against malicious data violations? Your first defense is to keep your systems secure and restrict access to sensitive data, ensuring only those who need it can access it. Access control helps you supervise who enters the system, when, and what they do. You can prevent unauthorized entries and trace any issues back to their source.

Don’t underestimate the importance of employee security training. Your team should be your fortress, not a backdoor for cyber threats. Regular training sessions can empower the team members to recognize and respond to security issues, from phishing emails to suspicious activity.

Preparation is another element of your strategy. War-gaming scenarios—simulated attacks—can test your company's response to a data breach. These exercises are not about scaring your team but preparing them for the worst-case scenario. It's about knowing what to do when the alarm bells ring.

Another preventive measure is data backup. It's the assurance that if data is lost or held hostage, your business can continue to operate. Data encryption adds a critical layer of security, ensuring that even if your sensitive information is accessed without authorization, it remains unintelligible and secure from prying eyes. Multi-factor authentication, firewalls, and anti-virus software further support your security posture.

Think of cloud security as yet another way to strengthen the protection of your data. While on-prem solutions are traditionally considered the safest, it is the cloud that can help you improve your defense mechanisms. Why? 

Cloud Security vs On-Premise Security

1. Advanced Encryption Methods

First, cloud security offers superior encryption capabilities. When you entrust your data to a cloud service provider, you benefit from their advanced security protocols, which are constantly updated to combat emerging threats. To reach the same level of encryption standards, on-premise security requires a significant investment in hardware and specialized staff. It involves the initial setup and ongoing management, including regular updates and patches to keep up with the latest hazards.

2. Geographic Redundancy

With an on-prem environment, your data resides within the four walls of your business, which may feel reassuring, but this proximity comes with inherent risks. Should a fire break out, a flood occur, or an earthquake shakes the foundations, your on-site servers—and all the critical information they contain—could be compromised or lost entirely. The physical security of your data is as strong as the building that houses it, and unfortunately, no location is immune to natural disasters.

Cloud security mitigates these risks through geographic redundancy. When you store your data in the cloud, it's not just in one place; it's distributed across multiple secure data centers in various locations. If one center is affected by a natural disaster, you can easily access the data from another site without losing information or operational downtime. 

3. Access Controls

Physical servers lack rigorous surveillance and access controls. They hinder general visibility and logging assessment, making it difficult to monitor who accessed the data and when. Sensitive information can be physically stolen or copied, leaving little trace behind.

A strong advantage of cloud security over on-prem is centralized security management. You can easily handle and monitor data, review extensive logs, track data access in real-time, decide to whom you grant permission to view information, and receive alerts for any suspicious activity. The latter significantly improves the speed of incidence detection and response. 

4. Security Costs

Financial implications matter, too. On-prem security often entails significant costs to protect your data, like surveillance cameras, secure access doors, and security personnel. These are not one-time expenses; they require maintenance, updates, and, potentially, expansions as your company grows. 

Additionally, the hardware itself—servers, backup systems, firewalls—needs regular upgrades and replacements. The cost of maintaining an on-premise infrastructure can be substantial, not to mention the specialized IT staff needed to manage and secure your systems around the clock. And in the end, are you sure data on your local server maintained by part-time IT resources is secure?

Cloud services entail lower costs, including the cost of maintenance. In this model, instead of sinking capital into physical infrastructure, you typically pay a subscription fee, which covers access to the provider's secure servers and up-to-date security measures. 

5. Traceability and Version Control

Tracking changes and restoring previous data versions can be challenging with on-premise security solutions. Checking who made changes, what was changed, and when, often requires meticulous record-keeping and additional version control systems. Reverting to a previous state of things in the event of a breach can be a manual and time-consuming process, fraught with the risk of data loss and inconsistency.

Cloud services excel in maintaining regular and automated backups, which you can restore to any point in time, improving traceability and simplifying version control. Every change is documented and reversible, providing a clear audit trail. In case of violations, the cloud is your safety net that allows quick recovery, minimizing downtime, and ensuring business continuity.

6. Vendor Risk Management

With on-prem security, the responsibility for managing risks associated with hardware and software vendors rests squarely on your shoulders. You must vet each vendor for their security practices, ensure that their products are up to date with the latest protections, and manage the lifecycle of each component in your IT environment. This is a resource-intensive process, requiring a dedicated team or tooling to monitor and assess multiple vendors' security posture continuously.

When you opt for cloud services, a third-party agent takes over the responsibility of verifying vendors, maintaining security updates, and ensuring compliance with industry standards. Off-prem providers have specialized teams whose sole focus is to manage these aspects, offering you a level of expertise and resources that would be challenging to replicate in-house. They also run periodic penetration testing to give you access to reports and insights into potential exposures.

7. Integrations and Regular Updates

Another standout benefit of cloud security is the ease of secure integrations and updates. Cloud service providers offer quick and safe integrations, reducing the complexity and potential vulnerabilities of piecing together disparate systems. Their updates are often automatic and require minimal to no downtime. With a cloud, you’re always running the latest version of the product, complete with the latest security patches.

On-premise security systems differ in this respect. To protect your environment, you need your own security team to install the latest software updates and provide functions and insights. Legacy systems are particularly problematic here, as they may not support the most recent upgrades or may require complex workarounds to maintain security standards.

8. Collaboration

Cloud security enables safe collaboration from anywhere. Team members can access the information they need from any location, using any device, without complex VPNs or remote access software that on-premise solutions often require. Security measures like encryption and secure access protocols ensure your data remains protected, regardless of where access occurs.

On-premise security, in contrast, can impose limitations on remote collaboration. Typically, local environments are designed for in-house access. While it's possible to set up secure remote connections, they often involve additional layers of security, which can add complexity and reduce the ease of use. 

9. Environmental impact

Last but not least, on-prem solutions require a continuous power supply for servers, cooling systems, and space to house the equipment—all of which contribute to your company's energy consumption and carbon footprint. Cloud security offers a more eco-friendly alternative, reducing the need for on-site data centers.

Learn More

The importance of data protection in today's digital age is undeniable. Cloud security can be your ally in making your data safer and more resistant to cyberattacks compared to on-prem solutions. Learn more about the capabilities of Altium 365 GovCoud and discover how to protect your sensitive information better.