Post from 2016:
Take a look back at the past year and you’ll see a number of companies that have experienced data breaches, hacks, and other security issues. It’s not limited to a certain industry, either: Experian (financial), BlueCross BlueShield (medical), Ashley Madison (online)…and the list goes on. While breaches are obviously bad news to the companies involved, they can also spell disaster for their customers, too. And the thought of being hacked or experiencing another security threat has still proven to be a top deterrent in moving to the cloud.
In fact, a Dell survey found that while 75 percent of IT decision makers believe C-Suite executives recognize the importance of data security, only 25 percent feel the C-Suite is adequately educated about the issues to make informed decisions. As a result, nearly two-fifths of all respondents restrict access to the public cloud within their organization, and almost 80 percent said they wouldn’t be willing to upload critical data to the cloud.
This seems like a bit of a rash move. Yes, there have been several breaches in the past year, but oftentimes, that’s a result of a company’s own doing. There’s nothing inherently riskier about the cloud than other IT environments, but most companies aren’t as aware of the proper ways to secure the cloud. We’ve discussed some proactive steps you can take to ensure a successful experience in the cloud; this includes ensuring everyone within an organization is on the same page when it comes to security, and being ready with an incident response plan should the worst happen.
Then again, perhaps migrating to the cloud isn’t the right move for your business. Maybe you’re running on-premise applications that simply wouldn’t function within the cloud, or your organization might not have the high-speed, high-quality WAN connection needed to ensure cloud connectivity and productivity. That’s completely fine—but the organization should come to that conclusion as a whole. The key is to have a strategy around your decision, not simply one or two people making quick choices.
We really cannot overstate the importance of education when it comes to the cloud, and there’s no harm in asking for assistance. We’ve called 2016 the Year of the MSP, with managed service providers playing an ever more crucial role in architecting and overseeing IT infrastructure, explaining and educating on the complexity of platforms and services, and ensuring organizations meet regulatory requirements. Despite some of the security concerns cited in the Dell study and similar surveys, more enterprises continue to move to the cloud. As a result, more of these organizations are working with MSPs to ensure their business remains productive, efficient, and secure.
Security has been–and may continue to remain–a concern for enterprises, but when you have the support of a trusted partner, it can put those fears to rest. There’s a lot of knowledge out there to be had, and educating yourself is a great start. Visit the AWS or Azure security blogs for more information on how to stay safe in the public cloud.