In our survey of IT professionals, 61% of people said data security in the cloud is a shared responsibility between cloud provider and data owner. Another 37% said it’s completely the data owner’s responsibility to keep it secure. But how exactly do you ensure the security of your data?
Ben Kepes from InfoSec Island posted this great checklist of security considerations when moving to the cloud. It’s from a whitepaper by RackSpace called “Say Goodbye to DIY Data Centers.” You can download the whitepaper or read the article on InfoSec Island.
- Firewalls – Customers still need to think about controlling the traffic in, and out, of their organization. Hardware and software firewalls ensure your traffic can bunch through, but the baddies are kept at bay
- Patches – You may be using lots of Cloud applications, but it’s still a safe bet that you have some desktop applications or, if not, at least some operating systems. These all need to have the latest versions of software running on them
- Backups – Unless everything you have is on the Cloud, you need to think about backing up your data, preferably off-site
- Controlling access to the Cloud – there’s no use being hyper secure if your employees leave mobile devices sitting around the place that people can access your sensitive data from. You need to think about policies and password protection for any device accessing your data
- Staff security – your biggest threat comes form within. Hire your staff well and make sure they don’t put you at risk, either maliciously or otherwise
- Passwords – the bane of our existence. Such an important area that we’ll come back to this one for more detail
Ensure these six points are dealt with, and you’re all set to enjoy a safe and rewarding Cloud experience.
By: SafeNet