What is Cloud Data Protection?

In today’s IT landscape, most organizations in the world have moved to the cloud and utilize at least one cloud-based service to carry out their business operations. The rapid transition from traditional servers to cloud platforms and increasing use of cloud-based services have made organizations store all the data in the cloud. 

As organizations collect more and more valuable data, especially sensitive customer information, and store them in the cloud, it becomes vital for them to secure them from cyber criminals. 

Cloud-based data storage isn’t inherently secure and they are vulnerable to many issues, especially security misconfigurations that make the data completely exposed. So it is no surprise that most of the organizations including yourself are concerned about data protection. 

However, with cloud data protection you can efficiently classify, monitor, and secure all the data across the cloud environment. In this article, we are going to dive deep into this crucial aspect of cloud computing and help you understand what is cloud data protection along with other information.  

So without any delay, let’s get started: 

What is Cloud Data Protection?

The shift from on-premises infrastructure to cloud environment has brought a change in the IT environment of the organization but it also made data security a challenge. Cybercriminals are coming up with advanced and sophisticated cyberattacks to steal cloud data. 

Cloud data protection has emerged as an effective solution to help organizations store data security. It is a set of data protection measures and techniques that is implemented in the cloud environment to safeguard all the data stored, processed, and transmitted in it. 

This solution relies on different methodologies, security technologies, access management, and organizational policies to ensure the confidentiality, availability, and integrity of data. The data protection not only helps to ensure that only authorized personnel can access the cloud data but also makes sure they are protected from hackers, misconfigurations, and errors. 

It enables organizations to have unified and consistent protection that helps in discovering, monitoring, protecting, and securing data across cloud environments. As a result, it has become a vital pillar of modern cloud computing and requires collaborative effort between users and CSPs. 

Why is Cloud Data Protection Important?

In the era of big data and cloud computing, organizations are processing, transmitting, and storing a large amount of data, ranging from sensitive customer information to organization’s financial information. As the volume of cloud data is increasing so does the number of cyberattacks on these data to steal or exploit them. 

An unauthorized access or loss of data due to human error will not only cause financial loss but also huge reputational damage. That is why it is important for organizations to have cloud data protection that will help protect the availability and integrity of the data while they are being stored, processed, or transmitted. 

Importantly, the data stored in the cloud facilitates a lot of business operations and helps enhance customer information so organizations need to protect them at all costs.

Every organization is emphasizing cloud data protection because it has become a part of modern cloud security and helps in building a robust cloud security strategy. To achieve this, cloud data protection platforms are ensuring data distribution and cloud application configuration adhere to best practices to prevent data exposure.

Moreover, organizations from various industries processing and storing customer data have to adhere to strict regulations like GDPR and HIPAA for data protection. Cloud data protection enables the organization to adhere to regulatory requirements by implementing necessary data protection measures. 

How Data is Protected in the Cloud

Various techniques, tools, technologies, and best practices are implemented to protect the data across the cloud environment. Standard methodologies like backup and disaster recovery are also utilized to ensure the data is always protected and stays in possession even if there is a malware attack or natural disaster. 

To enhance the overall data protection, encryption, secure deletion, and authentication methodology is also utilized for all the stored data and also data in transit. Organizations also make use of least-privilege access control to ensure that only authorized users can get access to sensitive cloud data. 

In organizations where data is accessed for different purposes, security teams and administrators are tasked with constant monitoring of data access and security configuration for errors or malicious behavior. 

When it comes to data protection in the cloud, security policies also play a significant role and keep malicious or negligent users or devices at bay. Redundancy is another technique utilized by organizations where they maintain multiple copies of sensitive information in different servers and use them during recovery. 

Cloud Data Protection Challenges

With cloud data protection, organization benefits in many ways but securing data in the cloud also brings several challenges. Organizations have to overcome the following challenges to ensure optimum protection: 

Encryption

Encryption is a big challenge in cloud data protection because it is not always available in the cloud environment, causing the data to be vulnerable. While the data are in transit, many applications encrypt them making it difficult for the organization to identify any anomaly or potential leaks.

A Google Transparency Report stated Google emphasizes encryption so cloud data protection that doesn’t control the data will lack the sessions, leading to data exposure.

Visibility

Modern organizations operate on multi-cloud infrastructure and lack control over their data hosting infrastructure, resulting in a lack of visibility. Moving workloads and limited information from data protection also limit visibility and make it difficult for the administrator to track what data they store and where they are located. 

Without comprehensive visibility, the security team won’t get granular control and can’t identify potential data leaks and access activity.

Configuration Management

Every cloud service provider offers a set of security settings that the user has to properly configure to protect the data in the cloud. However, managing the configuration and ensuring no data is stored in a public repository can be a big challenge because a misconfiguration can lead to data exposure. 

Cloud-Focused Design

Like traditional infrastructure, cloud data protection also comes with a unique set of security issues. Organizations have to look for a data protection solution that is designed to protect the data in the cloud; otherwise, it will lead to various security gaps.

Complex Data and Application Interaction

Nowadays, the data of an enterprise is constantly utilized by various applications hosted on various cloud environments. 

This leads to complexity in the interaction between application and data storage locations which ultimately makes it challenging to implement effective least-privilege access control. To achieve optimum cloud data protection it is important for a solution to properly define least-privilege control.

Inconsistent Approach By CSPs

When it comes to data protection in the cloud, every cloud service provider has their approach and ability, causing inconsistency in approach. This inconsistency in approach towards cloud data protection leads to many security threats. Cloud data protection solution needs to implement security measures that will address this consistency.

Maintaining Data Confidentiality Level

Another challenge of cloud data protection is maintaining data confidentiality level and limiting access to sensitive data depending upon the requirement. As data is constantly utilized by different entities and devices, maintaining confidentiality levels becomes an issue. 

The best way to address this challenge is by developing a strategy that limits access and implements restrictions on access to highly sensitive data.

Benefits of Cloud Data Protection

Cloud data protection and cloud computing go hand in hand allowing organizations to ensure optimum safety and protection standards for data without the risk and maintenance of traditional storage options. A robust cloud data protection will offer you many benefits and they are:

Data Security

The biggest advantage of cloud data protection is the data security it has on offer. It utilizes various techniques, tools, and methodologies along with monitoring to discover potential data loss and exfiltration and prevent them from happening. 

Proper implementation of this solution ensures all the sensitive data are protected across the cloud while maintaining integrity and availability.

Enhanced Access Management

Cloud data protection is based on least privilege access control and it helps in controlling who can access which data and what they can do with it. Users or devices with the right authorization and adhering to established guidelines can only access the data.  

Strong cloud security also helps in limiting access to sensitive customer and corporate financial information. 

Maintaining Regulatory Compliance

Every organization has to meet specific industry regulations like GDPR or HIPAA while they store and process sensitive customer information. Optimum data protection is one of the common requirements for every data protection regulation. 

Cloud data protection helps in adhering to regulatory requirements by implementing various techniques and enforcing policies. The availability of audit trails and logging details due to complete visibility makes compliance adherence much easier.

Data Visibility

With the implementation of cloud data protection, an organization can implement zero trust access control where all the access requests are assessed based on different criteria. It enables the administrators and security team to get complete visibility into how the data is being used and where they are stored.

High Scalability

Cloud data protection serves as a scalable data security solution that helps you maintain optimum data protection as the data volume grows with time. The best thing is that with high scalability you won’t have to make additional arrangements for hardware and maintenance.

Shared Security Responsibility

Most reputed third-party cloud providers employ robust security measures for the protection of the data in the cloud. Through shared security responsibility, they also help enhance the overall cloud data protection and ensure the cloud data is always protected.

Saves Money in the Long-Run

Having robust cloud data protection helps organizations save money in the long run. As this solution takes a proactive approach to identifying threats, it not only helps in saving additional resources but also the workforce required to mitigate an issue and eliminate impact after a breach. 

How Companies Can Protect Data in Their Cloud Environments

When it comes to protecting data in your cloud environment, you can opt for the following ways:

Implementing Cloud Data Protection

The best way for an organization to protect its data in the cloud environment is by employing a robust cloud data protection solution. The solution that you will implement should offer performance and scalability which will ensure it offers consistent data protection through the multi-cloud environment.

Zero Trust Framework

For comprehensive cloud data protection, organizations need to establish a zero-trust framework that will help you in ensuring only trusted users have access to sensitive information. 

A Zero Trust framework will utilize all the context associated with users and applications to build trust for a secure connection. Moreover, the Zero Trust framework will also ensure that only authorized users will have access to the organization’s resources and data will be safeguarded from cyber threats.

Securing Cloud Configuration

Along with the Zero Trust framework, having a cloud security posture management solution will help in protecting the cloud data. 

It performs monitoring across the infrastructure and remediates any misconfiguration, as a result, it prevents any risk that will enable cyber attackers to get access. It also ensures cloud environments are always securely configured because it will maintain a data security posture.

Reliable Cloud Provider

Choosing a reliable cloud provider is also a criterion for enterprises because a cloud provider with robust policies and security technology will help in safeguarding the data. They should meet your organization’s security requirements and adhere to industry standards.

Data Encryption

Data encryption is often utilized by organizations to protect them from exploitation and unauthorized access. If your organization deals with a high volume of data that are processed, stored, and transmitted for business operation, encryption can help you protect them.

Creating Backup

Every organization should create a backup of all their data and they should be protected at a similar level as the original one. Having a secure backup will be useful in the event of a data breach or natural disaster.

Creating an Inventory

To effectively protect all the data, an organization needs to create an inventory by performing an audit of all the data stored in the cloud. It is vital for your organization to know what all the data they store because then only they can completely protect the cloud data.

Cloud Data Protection Best Practices

When you are using the cloud to store all the data of your organization, you need to follow certain best practices. 

Incorporating these practices into your security strategy will not only keep them safe but also prevent unauthorized access. Here are the best practices you should follow:

Backup All The Data

While protecting all the cloud data, it is a good practice to create a secure backup of all that data and store it in a remote location. The cloud data should be backed up at regular intervals and using automation is the best way to carry out the backup process. 

Having a backup is vital for regulatory compliance and it will help you recover the data in the event of a data breach, system failure, or natural disaster.

Utilizing Authentication and Encryption Together

Many organizations prefer to use authentication to keep the data protected from unauthorized access. However modern attackers are coming up with ways to impersonate identities and gain access to sensitive data. 

However, when authentication is coupled with encryption, it provides an additional layer to the data as users will need an encryption key to access the data.

Assess the Inbuilt Security

The security provider looking after the security posture of your organization must come equipped with technologies, tools, controls, and policies that will ensure the protection of the data all the time. The cloud provider should communicate about their compliance policy with your organization and help you build the security strategy accordingly.

Robust Credential Policies

 Another best practice that you should follow is to maintain a robust credential policy that will limit the access of users to sensitive information. Having such a policy in place, will not reduce attack surface but also prevent data breaches.

Utilizing File-Level Encryption

To enhance the protection of cloud data, you can make use of file-level encryption for the additional layer of security. File-level encryption helps in fragmenting the data and storing them in an alternate location, helping your organization to minimize security breaches.

Select a Reliable Cloud Service Provider

Always select a cloud service provider with a high reputation and offer best-in-class security measures to protect the data of the clients in the cloud. 

Ensure the cloud service provider is transparent about their security policies and uses all the necessary tools and measures to prevent any attack. Even if there is a security breach, they should have plans to handle those breaches. You can expect such commitment and optimum security from CloudDefense.AI.

Monitoring the Cloud Activity

It is vital to monitor all the cloud activity, especially what users do with the data. You should review the logs of all the activity and uncover any suspicious activity that might comprise the sensitive information. Having the support of real-time monitoring will help you with constant monitoring and quickly get a report when it identifies any anomaly.

Secure all the Devices

To protect all your cloud, you also need to secure all the devices, especially endpoint devices in a network because they are vulnerable to attacks and data leaks. 

The endpoint devices are connected to the network of the organization so a breach in one endpoint will infect all the devices along with the data they store. You should implement additional security protocols and endpoint protection to prevent attackers from breaching the security perimeter.

Cloud Data Protection with CloudDefense.AI

Cloud data protection is a necessity for every organization as they store, process, and transmit data. CloudDefense.AI has emerged as the trusted vendor that has not only helped organizations build top-notch data protection in the cloud but also helped them implement a zero-trust network. 

From offering real-time monitoring and rapid incident response to advanced threat detection, CloudDefense.AI ensures the complete safety of your data and helps you navigate complex security challenges. Through superior scans with a Zero Trust policy, it prevents backdoor data access, auto-shrunk intrusion points, and segregates duties to team members according to requirements. 

With this platform, you won’t have to worry about compliance failure because it leverages the AirTight checklist to help you stay compliant with specific regulations. A great perk of choosing CloudDefense.AI is that it protects your 3rd party application and ensures attackers don’t get to crawl through the network. This platform helps you implement the industry-leading CSPM solution that detects multi-cloud threats, identifies misconfigurations, enforces custom policies, and deploys AI-driven remediation. CloudDefense.AI helps you take a holistic approach to your cloud data protection and ensure they are protected from every corner.