How to clear Skies for Cloud Security

More companies are discovering the benefits of the cloud, but they ignore security of virtualised services at their own risk.

• A majority (77%) of organisations trust cloud computing more than a year ago.[1]
• 80% of IT manager budgets will be dedicated to cloud computing in the next 16 months.[2]
• As many as 64.9% of IT leaders think the cloud is as secure or more secure than traditional on-premise software.[3]

The cloud is revolutionizing how business is done. No longer do companies have to invest in inflexible and expensive IT solutions. Switching to cloud-based services means tangible savings on hardware and software. But there is one area where companies should never skimp on: cloud security.

Moving sensitive information and operations to a remote data centre is something that could end up determining the fate of your company. So smart IT professionals know what an important decision it is to pick your cloud services provider.

According to a recent survey by the website TechTarget, data protection was the top priority when it came to cloud security. This included encryption, data loss prevention (DLP), database activity monitoring (DAM), backup and recovery services. Some 64 percent of 1.554 IT and business professionals surveyed planned to look into related security technologies for their cloud-based services.

57 percent said they were focused on network security based on firewalls, anti-virus protection, intrusion prevention and detection systems, as well as virtual private networks. Other priorities included cloud security topics like identity management, compliance and tokenisation meaning the substitution of sensitive data with a non-sensitive equivalent.

The cloud can undoubtedly provide extra peace of mind for businesses. For example, should there be a fire at a company’s headquarters, crucial data can be accessed and operations run from another location using new hardware. But moving such business continuity to the cloud means you have to be able to depend on a rock-solid network technology.

That is why Deutsche Telekom partners with Cisco, which was rated as the top network security vendor in the TechTarget survey. In particular, those asked appreciated Cisco’s cloud-based services monitoring Internet usage, network behaviour, and global threat detection. With own network infrastructure, Deutsche Telekom integrates leading technology across our Central and Eastern Europe footprint to ensure the security of virtualized services for your business.

But as more companies rely on the cloud, having a reliable partner is becoming more than just a competitive advantage – it’s becoming a crucial part of doing business every single day.

Guidelines for a safe use of the cloud:

Keep your key: You should encrypt the data at the origin and keep your encryption keys. Your data is in the cloud, but without the encryption keys, your provider can’t access it – so that even if they’re breached or subpoenaed, your data can’t be compromised without your knowledge.

Get Certified: Don’t rely on the cloud provider’s encryption alone. All the providers or solutions involved should be certified to meet strict standards, like FIPS 140-2.

Extra Encryption: For any data you cache on-premise or in a co-location facility, encrypted drives provide an additional layer of security.

Delete, Delete, Delete: The great thing about cloud is data redundancy. But that also means when you need to delete data, there are a lot of copies out there to delete. All copies of the data should be deleted not only in the redundant cloud datacentres, but also on any cloud-integrated storage devices.

[1] Cloud Security Alliance: “The Cloud Balancing Act for IT: Between Promise and Peril”, 2016
[2] Intel: “Blue Skies Ahead? The state of cloud adoption”, 2016
[3] Intel: “Blue Skies Ahead? The state of cloud adoption”, 2016