Why Companies Need Cloud Data Protection 

As companies are collecting massive amounts of data, ranging from highly confidential business, financial and customer data to fairly unimportant information, and are also moving the collected data across the cloud and storing it in many places – public, private and hybrid clouds, cloud storage environments, software-as-a-service applications, etc., the overall data flow becomes very complicated.

In such scenarios, protecting and securing all this  data across multiple environments can become complicated as the company faces challenges such as:

• applications and data stored on third-party infrastructure, a company lacks visibility into who is accessing and using its data
• which devices are being used for access, or how the data is potentially being used or shared.
• It has no insight into how cloud providers are storing and securing the data.  
• even though most cloud providers have robust security practices, this security is limited as the data flows across different systems .
• Besides, different cloud providers have varying capabilities, which can result in inconsistent cloud data protection and security.

In addition to the same there are other challenges like: 

• Application vulnerabilities and malware propagation
• Security breaches
• Loss or theft of sensitive data
• Obligations to comply with varied regulations like GDPR, CCPA, LGPD, HIPAA, PIPEDA etc.

How can a business implement suitable Cloud Data Protection practices

The answer depends on the goal that a company intends to achieve :

For Information security you can start with establishing the Information security controls like ISO 27001 and SOC 2 which will automatically create the system and environment for keeping the data protected. Besides, you must use the best available technological solutions to effectively implement the controls of the standards.

Frequently conduct Vulnerability and Penetration testing assessments and address the diagnosed vulnerabilities in your systems.

Moreover, the weakest link in this journey is the human error, thus keep your team trained and updated around the best practices and do’s and don’ts.

For regulatory obligations like HIPAA, GDPR, CCPA , LGPD, PIPEDA, POPIA etc. there cannot be one practise fits all . Although majority of elements of compliance will be similar but still there are differences in the expectation of each regulation. Thus taking a good professional advise and adopting the relevant technological solutions like Data Mapping, Data Audit, Consent Management etc. can really help to keep your data safe and your protected from a breach or violation.

Ayottaz can help you implement the multi-layered program to cover all aspects of your business’s cloud data protection needs.

Connect with us now.