Blog

It\’s important to understand that while digital innovations continue to rapidly advance, so are cybersecurity threats and malicious users. It has become very important for businesses to secure their sensitive data using the best technologies. The recent Facebook incident is a prime example of how no one is safe. The breach resulted in the exposure of more than 500 million profiles. This is why it has become so integral for big and small companies to adopt the best practices for cloud security and quickly implement the latest cloud data security measures.

Cloud security not only helps fortify your critical data protection initiatives but it also helps make sure that your cybersecurity practices comply with the latest regulatory laws, bolster customer trust, and eliminate any risk of financial disasters as a result of data breaches.

In addition, the cloud provides businesses with streamlined access to a plethora of innovative applications, optimizes data and network resources, improves team collaboration, and makes content management simpler, among other things. While some individuals raise their concerns about how complex and time-consuming migrating to cloud systems can be, rest assured with a qualified and reputed CSP (cloud service provider), the transition becomes infinitely simpler.

In light of this, we\’re going to talk about some very important cloud security best practices that can pave the way for your organization to create a powerful foundation, helping you establish a seamless yet secure cloud environment.

Understanding Cloud Security in a Nutshell

The best practices for cloud security protocols comprise a series of cybersecurity strategies that help safeguard your company\’s network resources and digital assets in a secure off-site, cloud-based environment. These strategies and security measures help guarantee a bird\’s eye view of all your user authentication, device monitoring, who has accessed what types of network resources, your company and client data, resource access control, and much more. 

Moreover, cloud security is also very useful because it can help support your organization\’s regulatory data compliance. Cloud computing as a cybersecurity tool is typically implemented in cloud or off-site ecosystems, completely safeguarding your data and online access points from DDoS attacks (denial of service), ransomware, internal breaches, malware, hackers, etc.

A Comprehensive Look Into Some Fundamental Best Practices for Cloud Security

Streamlined Data Encryption Protocols for Extensive Cloud Security

Encryption is one of the most important foundations of data security when you talk about a cloud infrastructure. It comprised transforming plain text into undecipherable pieces of cipher data, preventing any lingering bad actors or malicious software from decoding the text. The best advantage of encryption is that even if cyber criminals obtain this ciphertext, they will not be able to access it without first decrypting it. In light of this, let\’s talk about three types of encryption strategies that should be a part of your best practices for cloud security.

Encryption at Rest

This is a type of encryption measure that secures data as it is being stored. It can protect this data in all types of storage methods, such as on digital machines, physical databases, and more. To decrypt the data, you will need to access it via encryption keys. These keys can reveal the true data by converting it to its original form – plain text. In addition, files protected by encryption at rest are also stored in a different virtual location, away from the rest of the data. What this does is help guarantee that any cybercriminal who attempts to make an illegal breach will not be able to locate or get access to encrypted data.

Encryption in Transit

This type of encryption helps keep all your encrypted files secure when you attempt to transfer the data across different networks or third-party systems. This is an integral measure in a cloud security system where files and data need to move in and around various other cloud ecosystems and internet browsers. Via this strategy, you will have made sure that each encrypted file is protected before it migrates to another system and can only be decrypted when it reaches the destination location. In all, it\’s going to help eliminate any possibility of interception, preventing the data from being hijacked, and is one of the most important best practices for cloud security.

End-to-End Encryption

End-to-end encryptions offer the best of both worlds – comprising features from both encryption in transit and rest. This means that your data will always be encrypted and secured at source regardless of whether it is in transit or not. This makes it very difficult for cybercriminals or internal bad actors to illegally access your files. End-to-end encryption is vital for businesses that have to contend with managing and maintaining the integrity of large volumes of incredibly sensitive information or data.

User Authentication Must Be Fortified

The next vital element of a strong cloud security system is integrating an equally powerful user authentication. After all, you will need to keep a check on all the individuals who access your sensitive data. You will need an effective and prompt authentication system that can quickly identify the names of the individuals accessing your network, the time frame, and the subsequent activity.

Most importantly, this is going to help keep unwanted log-ins at bay. One of the best ways of implementing this process is via MFA (multi-factor authentication). This measure makes it mandatory for users to provide a minimum of two different yet authorized credentials and is a popular form of cybersecurity used by many businesses. It offers another line of defense by identifying any type of device the user uses to log in and is among the most vital best practices for cloud security.

Your APIs Must Be Secured

APIs are an acronym for application programming interfaces and are an important facet of operating a secure and fool-proof cloud security infrastructure. You can think of APIs as a bridge that allows communication between things such as network resources, applications, and online services on the cloud system. 

Having robust and safeguarded APIs can be an excellent layer of security as they combat vulnerability threats such as malware, data breaches, and/or code injections. The best way to help integrate secure APIs is to integrate advanced measures, namely access restriction based on authentic users, input data validation, and authentication tokens. 

Monitoring Your System Regularly with Daily Assessments

The saying \”prevention is better than the cure\” fits well when you talk about maintaining and managing your cloud security infrastructure. Consistently checking for vulnerabilities will help you keep a bird\’s eye view of your ecosystem, allowing you to act promptly should there be a sign of a potential data breach or malware intrusion.

To bolster your cloud security environment, you will need to continuously upgrade your network resources with cutting-edge suspicious activity detection systems, conduct daily network assessments, and regularly audit all your digital assets and data. These are all essential elements of your best practices for cloud security and can help drastically reduce the chances of a security breach.

Implement a State-of-the-Art CASB

CASB is short for a cloud access security broker. This is an advanced security software that protects your cloud computing and security ecosystem along with keeping an eye on your in-house IT infrastructure.  A cloud access security broker guarantees streamlined visibility across your entire cloud service ecosystem, keeping continuous checks on your data and implementing constant threat protection.

For instance, as a company, you can use CASB software to manage and maintain your control access points throughout your cloud security, reinforce cybersecurity protocols and policies, and immediately identify suspicious or unauthorized activity from outside and within. The consequences of not using a CASB can be many, including compliance violations, heightened risk of a security breach, illegal access, etc.

Commit to Continuous Penetration Testing

Implementing a robust penetration schedule can be another proactive measure to quickly identify and get rid of any vulnerabilities within your cloud system. Penetration testing is when your team of experienced IT specialists simulates or replicates effective or common cyberattacks to examine the structural volatility of your cloud security and the software you have implemented to protect against it. For example, your team can create a dummy phishing attack to determine how a bad actor could potentially gain access to sensitive data.

Conducting continuous penetration testing is among the most excellent best practices for cloud security and can help promptly determine potential weaknesses, thwarting a possible and malicious attack. It allows your IT team to reconcile any weaknesses and employ more robust and powerful methods of system security.

Prevent Human Errors By Training and Educating Your Employees

Cybersecurity awareness programs can go a long way in ensuring fewer human errors and/or discrepancies occur. Understand that human errors pose a very serious threat to your secure cloud systems. Keeping your employees up to date with the latest trends in cybersecurity and how to prevent attacks based on negligence ensures they are trained with all the essential protocols and steer clear of conducting harmful online behaviors.

The training program can include things such as how to identify and navigate through a potential phishing scam, determine suspicious emails, learn how to use secured company devices and much more. A lack of training will lead your employees to expose critical data or files or unintentionally provide malicious users an access way to corrupt your system. Without such training, employees might inadvertently expose sensitive data or provide access points for cybercriminals.

Implement the Use of DLP Software (Data Loss Prevention)

Another core aspect of your best practices for cloud security is going to be the implementation of the right DLP measures. These are essentially network tools that quickly identify data vulnerabilities and check the number of unauthorized breach attempts that have been made to access your critical files. They help prevent illegal data exposure by conducting continuous threat detection, monitoring your cloud network activities, and much more.

For instance, DLP software will promptly send you an alert if a customer\’s credit card information is in the process of being transported to a third-party network (outside of your organization\’s network). If the process is achieved via a breach, it will stop it. DLPs are used by companies that deal with highly sensitive data, preventing the data from falling into malicious hands.

Formulating a Data Recovery Plan with the Implementation of Incident Response

Last but not least, your cloud security infrastructure will be incomplete without a prompt and aptly managed incident response framework and an equally effective data recovery plan. Understand that while having a secure and top-notch cloud ecosystem is important, it doesn\’t eliminate the chances of a potential security breach. However, if you implement a proactive approach to best practices for cloud security, using the right cybersecurity protocols and procedures, you can keep damage to a minimum, recover the files that are breached, assess the damage, and restore your services.

Why Businesses All Over the World Partner with Corporate Technologies for Their Cloud Security

In the sophisticated and perplexing world of cloud-based infrastructures, nothing is more important than data governance and ensuring your systems are well-protected from unauthorized users. As we traverse this complex network, Corporate Technologies is well-versed and equipped to provide businesses with the best standards of data security possible. 

But how does Corporate Technologies integrate top-notch cloud security measures and provide streamlined and seamless middleware for organizations? Well, we do it with a talented team of veteran IT specialists along with state-of-the-art technologies. Here\’s how we do things:

Our Technical Foundations are Built Upon Formidable Technology

At Corporate Technologies, employ the use of some of the best third-party cybersecurity technologies across the globe. Our cloud security solutions are designed and propelled by renowned and accredited security platforms. As a highly secured cloud security platform, we contend with staggering amounts of data while seamlessly keeping everything profoundly secure.

We Empower Your Migration or Transition to a Cloud Security Environment

At Corporate Technologies, we strive for excellence and are continuously dedicated to providing our clients with a middleware solution that transcends traditional network utilities such as application connection. We offer next-level cybersecurity maintenance services guaranteeing that your data will always be secured and flow without the risk of being intercepted. In addition, we help companies seamlessly transition to an iron-clad cloud network by implementing the best practices for cloud security.