As your business grows, it’s important to ensure your security grows with it. One of the most pressing issues for organizations is their data and infrastructure security, especially with much of their operations relying on cloud service providers and third-party applications. Although not all business owners and leaders realize it, many of these providers do not protect their customers from security threats, and managing them is primarily the responsibility of the business.
If you, like many others, have adopted a cloud or hybrid infrastructure, it’s important to have security at scale for your business. While the cloud provides nearly unlimited scalability, it does not guarantee your security. However, many organizations struggle to come up with the time and resources to focus on security, leaving them vulnerable to attack as they grow. To minimize your risk, you need to prioritize finding data security solutions that will support your growing business.
The Fast-Moving Cloud
The great thing about the cloud is its adaptability. DevOps practices can make rapid updates to apps, APIs, and other components of cloud infrastructure. Organizations can expand or contract the amount of server space needed from the cloud service provider based on current demand, and there is typically not any need for expensive hardware investments. However, there is a downside. Cloud environments evolve rapidly as systems and workflows are spun up and down, but the cloud service providers generally do not cover all of the environment’s security needs, instead leaving that to the organization.
So, although the organization can change the infrastructure on a dime, those changes can open up security flaws and vulnerabilities that often go undetected. This creates a problem for businesses. A changing cloud environment that does not have corresponding security changes is vulnerable to attack. Both proprietary information and customer data are at risk, and a security incident could lead to fines for compliance violations, data theft or loss, legal action, and other undesirable consequences.
Frequent change can also affect the application of data security best practices. Employees may not always store data properly, and with the uptick in remote work, there is a possibility that they will access sensitive data stored in the cloud from an unsecured device or network. Without effective activity monitoring, data silos and leaks can pop up, largely unnoticed. Without cloud-specific security measures, these vulnerabilities are wide open for exploitation.
Security Struggles to Keep Up
Traditional security practices, like firewalls, are necessary for your environment’s security, but they struggle to keep up with cloud evolution. While you should have firewalls, multi-factor authentication, and network monitoring in place, these are not enough for a cloud-based environment. Tools aside, security teams are struggling to meet the needs of these more sophisticated and complex environments due to time and personnel constraints. Developers are also under pressure to fix bugs and update applications frequently, and these frequent changes sometimes come at the expense of security.
Poor cloud security carries many risks. Much of the code used for building cloud-based applications and APIs is open-source, which means that attackers have access to the code and can study it for weaknesses before coming anywhere near your security measures. If an attacker finds a vulnerability, and your security team hasn’t patched it yet, your organization could be incapacitated by ransomware or data theft and deletion. Because security teams are stretched so thin, it’s very possible that an attacker will be able to find a vulnerability that hasn’t been addressed. Finding a scalable, security-focused tool that can help teams manage the environment should be a priority.
Scalable, Secure Cloud Agility
To improve your data security in a cloud environment, it’s important to focus on scalability. Traditional security measures are still relevant, but they can be static. Your organization needs a security platform that can scale with your cloud use, and it should be compatible with both traditional hardware and the cloud infrastructure. For your business to succeed, customer demands for updates, new features, and bug fixes need to be addressed; however, compromising between development speed and security is not ideal. To accomplish all of these goals, a data service platform that can help you monitor, scale, and secure your environment is necessary.
Scale-focused security platforms emphasize automated security and compliance measures. They can discover and classify sensitive data, and they should support workflows designed to enforce best practices. Security platforms can also alert security teams to unusual activity in the environment, making it easier to monitor and address weak points.
An increasing number of businesses are moving to the cloud to host their applications and websites, which is good for business growth and scaling. However, security does not always keep up with development, so it’s important for business owners and leaders to implement tools like data security platforms that can help enforce best practices, monitor the environment, and supplement traditional security practices, so that the security of the cloud environment scales with usage.
