Security in the Cloud More Important Than Ever

In today’s highly connected world, our growing reliance on the web to house everything from banking information to other personal data has made the importance of ensuring that the cloud is secure more essential than ever. It does not matter what industry you are in, data breaches are a threat to us all. According to a recent study by the Ponemon Institute, “Is Your Company Ready for a Big Data Breach?,” data breaches are becoming ubiquitous with almost half (43%) of organizations surveyed having suffered at least one security incident. That number is up 10% from 2013, continuing to reinforce the fact that cloud security is a requirement, not simply an option.

As the No Jerks Allowed company, Relentless Security™ is a mindset instilled into our company culture. Here are a few data security best practices that should be implemented (especially by a cloud hosting provider) to mitigate cloud computing security risks: multi-tiered security, awareness, tracking and physical security.

• Multi-Tier Security:A multi-tiered approach signifies that multiple barriers and checkpoints are put in place in the event that a compromise occurs. For example: the first tier of the architecture is implemented by redundant perimeter firewalls. The firewall protects against malicious hacking and DDoS attempts. The second tier of the security architecture is implemented by the use of private, non-routable IP address spaces. In the unlikely event the firewall is breached, the servers behind the firewall cannot route traffic to the Internet.

• Monitoring, Awareness and Tracking: With security breaches and bugs (most recently the Bash Bug) posing a continuous threat to our data, being well versed and monitoring multiple channels of information is essential in staying atop of the ever-changing security environment. Additionally, in the event of a security notice, vigilant awareness measures must be in place to swiftly review the notice and determine the severity of it. If the notice is deemed to present a serious threat, there should be patches or a set work-arounds in place to be immediately implemented. See the proper way to respond to a data breach.

• Physical Security:All data centers are protected by a number of layers of security including multiple layers of electronic building & facility access secured by magnetic locks, 24/7 onsite-personnel, monitored and recorded closed-circuit cameras, mantraps and mandatory identity logging of all outside visitors. Hosting providers also shouldn’t risk compromising your data by allowing companies with poor security practices to share data center resources. Demand a provider that performs background checks before allowing customers to host.

At Connectria, we constantly look for vulnerabilities and continually find ways to better protect our customers’ servers and data as if it is our own. To learn more about Connectria’s hosting and security services check out our Managed and Cloud Hosting Plans.