Cloud computing has undisputedly been one of the best things to have happened to the Information Technology Industry. At difficult times like these when the entire world is fighting a pandemic in the form of Covid-19, cloud computing has emerged as a great savior for small and large businesses alike. The remote, on-demand access to computing power and other important company resources that it offers over the internet, has helped people save both their businesses and lives; enabling them to operate from home. Even when the Covid-19 situation is taken out of the equation, cloud computing is and will continue to be, for times to come, the most vital IT solution.
There are plenty of cloud services and solutions that businesses are using to their advantage. Fully managed hosting services are being offered to enterprises wherein the setup, management, administration, and support of the cloud server are taken care of by the hosting company. The Right Scale’s annual State of the Cloud Report, 2019 claims that about 94% of the enterprises use some cloud service or other, which is fairly justified by the state-of-the-art infrastructure that the cloud offers. Furthermore, these enterprises allocate approximately 30% of their IT budgets to cloud computing, according to Forbes.
While the world continues to adopt cloud computing, it is worried, and rightly so, about the vulnerabilities of the data, at the same time. Cyber-attacks and other malicious activities pose great threats to the security and privacy of the enormous data that are being stored at different locations over the internet (the cloud). The hackers and cyber-criminals can gain access to personal, vital information within no time from even a small hole in the system. According to the University of Maryland, hackers attack every 39 seconds, 2244 times a day, on average. As per Verizon, about 71% of the data breaches are motivated financially, while 25% of them are motivated by espionage. Irrespective of their motives, these attacks remain the biggest concern for individuals and enterprises.
The Cloud Security Alliance points to Insecure Interfaces and APIs, Data Loss and Leakage, and Hardware Failure to be the top three threats to the security of the cloud. 29% of the security outages take place due to Insecure Interfaces and APIs, while 25% and 10% of them are attributed to Data Loss and Leakage and Hardware Failure, respectively. This blog post discusses some of the most common security threats in the cloud and some possible measures that help users to avoid them.
Insecure Interfaces and APIs
Application Programming Interface, abbreviated as API, is an intermediate application that allows multiple applications to communicate with each other. It is one of the primary elements of cloud computing, where interoperability and integration of various services are essential. As per a study by Imperva, about 61% of the enterprises have revealed that their business plan depends fairly upon API integration. The study further indicates that a typical company manages around 363 APIs, on an average. In order to provide superior services, companies have to expand their API infrastructure, which indirectly increases security risks.
Insecure APIs have been the cause of more than six prominent data breaches in 2018. One of the world’s leading research companies, Gartner estimates inadequate API security to be the most frequently used tools for attacks involving data, by 2022. What makes an API one of the most pregnable facets of cloud computing is the way it authorizes communication with other applications. While communication helps businesses and programmers, it also raises the probability of security exploitation, especially when a weak authorization mechanism is employed. However, there are ways that can help users successfully mitigate the security threat posed by an insecure API. Organizations exercise quality API hygiene that ensures robust authentication techniques and a strong access control system, which keeps the security issues at bay.
Data Loss and Leakage
Cloud computing has made businesses more agile and efficient, certainly more than ever. The smooth, remote resource and data sharing that the cloud allows has made sure enterprises embrace work-from-home culture enthusiastically. However, maximum employees working from home, accessing sensitive company data has also opened the doors for data leakage. Loss of important data results in great inconvenience, disrupting the day-to-day operations of an organization. While some companies take years to revive themselves from the losses, many of them have to even call it a day, unable to recover. The loss of intimate user or client information also makes a company lose its rapport.
The data loss may occur due to a human error where a registered user deletes or overwrites the data, accidentally. It may also result from deliberate efforts carried out by hackers. An unsecured network increases the chances of a data hack. The use of personal devices by employees, in the absence of robust security, results in data leakage too. There are numerous other causes of data loss or leakage like virus or malware attacks, software corruptions, power outages, and hard drive malfunctions etcetera. To circumvent data loss and leakage, companies implement strong data encryption techniques in addition to having a secured network connection. They use strong, longer user passwords and change them frequently to secure their data. Employee training programs are also attributed to stopping the unintentional leakage of confidential information. Employing correct data access permissions further helps to avoid unnecessary access to sensitive data, which reduces the odds of data loss and leakage.
Account Hijacking
Cloud service or account hijacking is also one of the security concerns in cloud computing. It is a process where a nefarious organization or individual hijacker obtains access to the company’s personal data and attempts hijacking important accounts such as bank accounts, social media accounts, or e-mail accounts. Cybercriminals often use stolen credentials to carry out these attacks. They also employ advanced phishing techniques in order to gain unauthorized access to confidential information of an enterprise. But it is possible to stop these attacks by employing correct precautionary measures. Spreading proper awareness may help employees in identifying the phishing attacks, making sure they don’t fall prey to them. Defining accurate access permissions also helps to minimize the threat by reducing the amount of data that the hijackers get their hands on, in case they succeed in hijacking an account.
Cloud computing is an inextricable part of this modern world, ruled by smartphones and social media. While the cloud service providers are committed to fighting against potential data threats, it is equally important for enterprises and individual users to adopt practices that guarantee data security and privacy. Exercising correct, proactive measures make sure organizations safeguard their data against all threats, allowing themselves to expand their businesses with all the privileges the cloud offers.
