Cloud security has been a recent issue for a couple of big companies with lots of resources. Part of the reason can be attributed to changing patterns of thought. The evolution of the perspective of companies on moving data to the cloud has closely followed the evolution of the perspective of consumers first purchasing items on the Internet 20 years ago.
• First, there was great concern that the data would be far less secure than it was when using traditional storage techniques. Nobody wanted to be the first to test online security.
• After years of early adopter testing and expensive marketing campaigns, users discovered that internet-based data storage could be even safer than traditional storage techniques.
• As people rushed to catch up to the early adopters, they neglected to take the necessary cloud security steps. This led to a scary realization – just because it could be secure, didn’t mean that it was guaranteed to be secure.
In the case of cloud migrations, it has been during that third phase that the cloud starts to leak data. Consider the recent data leaks from Amazon’s S3 cloud. Dow Jones and Verizon have both left massive data repositories unsecured by failing to simply check the permissions settings. It wasn’t that the cloud storage system lacked security. It was that the security was inadvertently disabled by the companies using the service. And while Amazon can invest much more heavily in security technology than the average small or mid-sized business, they can’t make sure that every company using their budget-offering S3 service has configured it correctly.
Cloud Security Considerations
This speaks to the importance of planning and caution when preparing a data migration. Whether you’re migrating mail, software services, or corporate data, don’t allow timelines and budget considerations to jeopardize your data! In order to truly migrate to a lower-risk, higher-reward cloud solution, plenty of boxes must be checked.
• Are permissions set up correctly?
• Is the data backed up regularly, for a long enough duration of time?
• Do you have enough bandwidth to handle storing and retrieving the data externally?
Those are just a few of the many questions you should be asking about cloud security. And if someone is offering an unbelievable price on a cloud migration, don’t believe it – at least not until you ask the right questions.
To learn more about how WingSwept can help your company manage a successful cloud deployment, call us at 919.779.0954 or email Team_WingSwept@WingSwept.com.