Prevent data breach in cloud computing using our robust strategies like Incident Response Plan, regular data backups, data encryption, multi-factor authentication, etc.
Cloud computing has revolutionized the way enterprises store data. It’s scalable, flexible, and cost-effective compared to on-premise IT infrastructure. But with a long list of benefits comes one risk: data breaches. Data breaches have become more common than ever and impact businesses of all sizes.
As per the Cost of Data Breach Report 2022 by IBM, the average total cost of data breaches reached an all-time high of USD 4.35 million. Due to ever-growing cases of data breaches, many businesses are hesitant to move their data to the cloud. Luckily, there are multiple ways to prevent data breaches using cloud computing solutions.
In this ultimate tutorial, we will discuss the basics of a data breach and how to prevent it using some tried and tested methods in 2023.
What is a Data Breach?
Before delving deep into “how to protect data breaches using cloud computing,” let’s start with the basics: what is a data breach?
Simply put, a data breach is a security incident in which a third party accesses someone’s data with the intent of causing harm. The data could be either of a business or its customers.
Cyber threats and data breaches occur when cyber attackers gain access to files and folders that contain sensitive information. For example, an employee may accidentally expose the company’s private, sensitive, and protected information to cybercriminals. Further, a hacker might breach data from corporate databases and use it to demand ransomware.
Specifically, there are three ways in which data breaches occur.
Loss or Theft: It’s a common form of security incident that occurs when a device containing data is lost, or hackers get unauthorized access to credentials.
Insider Attack: This type of data breach occurs when an employee leaks information to a third party. Also called a malicious insider attack, it involves accessing or stealing a company’s sensitive information and selling them to a hacker for profit.
Targeted Attack: In this data breach, a group of attackers or cyber criminals obtain highly confidential information from an individual or organization. Common types of targeted cyberattacks that result in data breaches include malware attacks, Denial-of-Service (DoS) attacks, phishing attacks, and vulnerability exploits.
How to Prevent Data Breach in Cloud Computing?
Regardless of the underlying cause of potential data breaches, you must take appropriate measures to avoid reputation damage and protect the company’s information. Some practical ways to prevent data loss in cloud computing include regular backups, access controls, disaster recovery plans, encryption, etc. Let us discuss these best practices to mitigate the risk of a data breach briefly.
Incident Response Plan (IRP)
Human errors on the user’s side and criminal ingenuity on the attacker’s end make critical security incidents unavoidable. That’s why enterprises must focus on creating an Incident Response Plan (IRP). It involves a written detailed plan with 6 distinct phases that include the following:
- Preparation: The most crucial phase focuses on ensuring employees are properly trained to avoid critical mistakes.
- Identification: The second phase focuses on determining whether your business data have been breached. It involves gathering all the information about the cyber attack event that happened.
- Containment: Next, you must contain the breach so it does not spread and cause further damage. For instance, you can disconnect affected devices from the Internet and have containment strategies to prevent data breach risk in place.
- Eradication: It means eliminating the root cause of the breach.
- Recovering: In this phase, you must restore and return affected systems and devices to your IT infrastructure.
- Lesson Learned: The last step is to identify loopholes in the security system and ensure data breach does not happen again.
Data Encryption
One of the ideal ways to prevent data breaches in cloud computing is by encrypting business data. Encryption means converting meaningful data into ciphertext or encoded format.
Only authorized people with a decryption key can decode and use the sensitive data. The core aim of the additional security layer is to prevent data loss during intrusions and breaches.
Use of Multi-Factor Authentication
Device-based multi-factor authentication is generally more secure and can help prevent data breaches. Enabling multi-factor authentication means if somebody’s username and password are stolen, hackers will still have to do much more work to access the information.
Use of Intelligent Automation
Nearly 95% of cybersecurity threats are linked to human errors, according to the World Economic Forum’s 2022 Global Risks report. That’s why turning to data automation tools can help strengthen the security system. In addition, these intelligence tools can help simplify security processes, such as access control, threat detection and response, and data encryption.
Training Employees
Many hackers trick employees by sending phishing emails that appear authentic. Phishing emails often contain an untrustworthy link, and clicking it can compromise an organization’s data with cybercriminals.
Therefore, enterprises must focus on training employees about phishing attacks. Top-up sessions and regular training courses can ensure employees understand cybersecurity threats and how to avoid a potential cyber attack.
Bonus Tip: Regular Data Backups
In order to avoid data breaches in your organization, highly sensitive data and valuable assets should be regularly backed up. The three common types of data backup methodologies include:
- Full Backup: The most robust way to protect your business cloud-native data. It involves copying all the cloud data resources and regularly capturing all files, documents, and system settings.
- Incremental Backup: It involves capturing the data that has been changed after the last backup. You can find deleted, updated, or newly stored files or folders here.
- Differential Backup: It involves capturing and storing data that has been updated after the last full backup.
The threat of data breach is considered to be at its peak when you migrate on-premise data to the cloud. Whether you’re an enterprise owner wanting to build a cloud data migration strategy or want to protect your stored cloud computing data, contact experts to avoid breach threats. The professional team of Inferenz can help you protect highly confidential business data using robust security measures.
Protect Your Business Information From Data Breach
Organizations must strengthen their public cloud security and cyber risk measures in the hybrid cloud environment. As mentioned, data encryption, Incident Response Plans, regular data backups, etc., are great ways to prevent data breaches.
If you are confused about how to safeguard your business from data loss or identify the cause of a data breach, contact the data and cloud experts of Inferenz. The team can help you prevent data breaches using reliable security practices.
