One of the main concerns companies have when considering moving their IT systems to remote datacentres is cloud computing security. It seems as though almost every day there's another major news story about a company being hacked and its customer data stolen, as cybercriminals gain entry to servers and hard drives or launch attacks that bring organisations to a grinding halt.
And no company is immune from the threat — cyberattacks are happening every day to organisations large and small. According to government figures, nearly half of the almost 6 million businesses in the UK and one-quarter of charities are subject to cyberattacks, putting them at risk of reputational harm and financial loss, including the possibility of large fines for failing to protect customer data.
Threats typically take the form of Distributed Denial of Service attacks, where large numbers of computers are used to overwhelm servers and websites and bring them down. Other common threats include Man-in-the-middle attacks, phishing, unleashing malicious code in the form of viruses and worms, ransomware, botnets and a whole lot more. The ways cybercriminals are using to gain entry to systems is growing, as is the volume of attacks.
Solid Cloud Computing Security
Staying on top of cloud computing security amid the rising threats is a challenge for any firm, and those that have an in-house IT system must constantly monitor it for any potential vulnerabilities that criminals could exploit. Moving to the cloud gives companies and organisations a far greater cloud security advantage, however, as cloud providers have robust security managed by teams of experts all over the world who are devising the latest ways to keep their systems and client data safe.
The amount of money they invest every year in their cloud computing security is on a level that the average small and medium-size business could never afford. Microsoft, for instance, spends $1 billion a year on security for its Azure cloud, employs over 3,500 cybersecurity experts to keep its datacentres and their client data safe and uses machine learning and other forms of unique intelligence to identify threats before they have a chance to erupt and cause trouble.
Cloud Disaster Recovery
In the event that something does go wrong in the cloud and a datacentre and its servers are compromised or a hardware or software failure occurs, cloud disaster recovery ensures client data will not be lost and companies won't face possible catastrophe. A cloud disaster recovery plan is usually part of using a cloud service as it means you have cloud recovery built into it, giving you peace of mind should something happen.
There are cloud backup advantages to transitioning on-site IT systems to the remote servers of a datacentre, because backups are carried out in real-time as staff work, and they're automatic. And multiple levels of redundancy mean that if one part of a datacentre is breached by cybercriminals, client data is stored and safe elsewhere. It does away with the need to perform laborious manual backups of data in the office, to have the hardware to store it all on, and ensuring it’s well-maintained so you don’t lose it.
The power of the cloud means that companies and organisations of all sizes can benefit from lower costs and increased efficiency and flexibility — and avail of the best in cloud computing security to keep cybercriminals at bay and their customer data safe.