Cloud security consists of the practices and technology necessary to protect cloud computing services from cybersecurity threats.
Protection is necessary because the use of cloud computing has exploded over the past decade, and there’s no end to the growth in sight. Global spending on the cloud hit $229 billion in 2019 and is poised to exceed an astonishing $623 billion by 2025.
Methods of providing cloud security include firewalls, penetration testing, obfuscation, tokenization, virtual private networks (VPN), and avoiding public internet connections.
Major threats to cloud security include data breaches, data loss, account hijacking, service traffic hijacking, insecure application program interfaces (APIs), poor choice of cloud storage providers, and shared technology that can compromise cloud security.
Distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks are another threat to cloud security. These attacks shut down a service by overwhelming it with data so that users cannot access their accounts, such as bank accounts or email accounts.
This is not just a theory. In October 2019, Amazon Web Services (AWS) suffered a major DDoS attack roughly eight hours long. Users couldn’t connect because AWS miscategorized their legitimate customer queries as malicious. Google Cloud Platform encountered a variety of troubles at roughly the same time, but the company claims they were unrelated to DDoS.
A few weeks earlier, a number of DDoS attacks knocked out a South African ISP for a full day, making internet access widely impossible.
Truth is, all cloud models are susceptible to threats. IT departments are naturally cautious about moving mission-critical systems to the cloud and it is essential the right security provisions are in place, whether your organization is running a native cloud, hybrid or on-premise environment.
Cloud security offers all the functionality of traditional IT security, and allows businesses to harness the many advantages of cloud computing while remaining secure and also ensure that data privacy and compliance requirements are met.
Cloud data security becomes increasingly important as we move our devices, data centers, business processes, and more to the cloud. Ensuring quality cloud data security is achieved through comprehensive security policies, an organizational culture of security, and cloud security solutions.
Want to know more? Tonex offers Cloud Security Training Crash Course, a 3 day program that provides technical details on information, data, and storage security in the cloud. All aspects of authentication, confidentiality, integrity, availability and security risks and mitigations are covered.
Additionally, Tonex offers nearly three dozen more courses in Cybersecurity Foundation. This includes cutting edge courses like:
—Cybersecurity Fundamentals (2 days)
—Electric Grid Cybersecurity Master Certification (4 weeks)
—Network Security Training (2 days)
—Software Security Training (2 days)
—ICS Cybersecurity Training (4 days)
For more information, questions, comments, contact us.