Data Security Breaches: How to protect your IT Infrastructure from Misconfigured Cloud Storage

Posted on | by Veronica Gonzalez

Data Security Breaches: How to protect your IT Infrastructure from Misconfigured Cloud Storage

Data Security Breaches: How to protect your IT Infrastructure from Misconfigured Cloud Storage

Companies increasingly understand the importance of data protection. Some estimates say that unprotected IT infrastructure will reach $6 billion by 2021, and each data breach costs an average of $3.92 million which is a huge reason for concern.

But companies are getting on it. One of the most common causes of data breaches is misconfigured cloud storage. How to prevent it? Here we’ll tell you some tips on protecting your data from misconfigured cloud storage.

First things first, what’s a misconfigured cloud storage and why does it matter?

Security incidents involving unprotected storage happen almost every day. A study from Thales and Ponemon Institute revealed a worrisome statistic: half of the organizations don’t encrypt or tokenize sensitive data on the cloud to protect it.

A survey conducted by Fugue also had some concerning findings. After surveying 300 IT professionals they found that, on average, IT crews report a frequency of 50 misconfigurations per day, which are reviewed once a day, or more. These issues may lead to data breaches and system downtime.

A misconfiguration means the parts of a public cloud server, like the storage and computes, experience an issue in the configuration that makes them susceptible to a breach. This is a way too common issue. Why? Mainly because most of the cloud database implementations come without any security, access control or levels of access as an initiating standard, which means they have to be added afterward, which can be missed by the IT crew or may lead to seams in the system. Many cybersecurity professionals believe cloud companies are responsible for the data protection, and they are not, at least not at a legal level. Many businesses and professionals don’t know this, which leads them to confide that cloud providers will protect their data, which easily leads to data breaches and enormous extra costs. What can you do to prevent it? First of all, you have to understand that configuration is a vital part of security. It’s not optional; it’s not a mere add-on. It’s completely necessary. After this, the best you can do is using third-party security software that may allow you to constantly check your configurations. This will allow you to not rely exclusively on what the cloud is saying, but gives you an independent alert. Lastly, a good way to prove the overall strength of your configuration is by using external security audits to ensure everything is properly configured. This three-step process is generally flawless if done correctly. But there are a couple of extra measures you may want to check. First, it’s good to maintain a holistic, updated catalog of your digital assets. You have to continuously monitor, classify, and give a risk score to all of your software, data, users, and licenses: you cannot protect what you don’t know you have. Last but not least, a solid practice is to prioritize risks and threats among your testing efforts. Once you know all of your digital assets and their features, you can test them, including penetration testing over the most critical APIs and web apps. In Conclusion The intersection between data security and cloud computing is enormously complex and there’s a significant probability of human error, which means it is incredibly important to have it all under control. As data breaches are increasingly common and costly, you can never say you’re investing enough time and money in protecting your data from cloud misconfigurations and breaches.

A misconfiguration means the parts of a public cloud server, like the storage and computes, experience an issue in the configuration that makes them susceptible to a breach. This is a way too common issue.

Why? Mainly because most of the cloud database implementations come without any security, access control or levels of access as an initiating standard, which means they have to be added afterward, which can be missed by the IT crew or may lead to seams in the system.

Many cybersecurity professionals believe cloud companies are responsible for the data protection, and they are not, at least not at a legal level. Many businesses and professionals don’t know this, which leads them to confide that cloud providers will protect their data, which easily leads to data breaches and enormous extra costs.

What can you do to prevent it?

First of all, you have to understand that configuration is a vital part of security. It’s not optional; it’s not a mere add-on. It’s completely necessary. After this, the best you can do is using third-party security software that may allow you to constantly check your configurations. This will allow you to not rely exclusively on what the cloud is saying, but gives you an independent alert.  Lastly, a good way to prove the overall strength of your configuration is by using external security audits to ensure everything is properly configured.

This three-step process is generally flawless if done correctly. But there are a couple of extra measures you may want to check. First, it’s good to maintain a holistic, updated catalog of your digital assets. You have to continuously monitor, classify, and give a risk score to all of your software, data, users, and licenses: you cannot protect what you don’t know you have.

Last but not least, a solid practice is to prioritize risks and threats among your testing efforts. Once you know all of your digital assets and their features, you can test them, including penetration testing over the most critical APIs and web apps.

In Conclusion

The intersection between data security and cloud computing is enormously complex and there’s a significant probability of human error, which means it is incredibly important to have it all under control. As data breaches are increasingly common and costly, you can never say you’re investing enough time and money in protecting your data from cloud misconfigurations and breaches.