Protect Data in the Cloud : Tips and Theories

Protect Data in the Cloud with the key factor that determines the adoption of cloud services. To protect a cloud environment it requires additional procedures. The skepticism that many users cloud computing services have placed seems to wane. With this given trend, it is not surprising that cybercriminals have identified cloud infrastructures as a worthwhile to invest time and money.

Protect Data in the Cloud : The Current Scene

We said, Protect Data in the Cloud with the key factor. But what is the key factor ? Safety is a key factor that determines the adoption of cloud services. Attacks on cloud computing services have increased significantly in the past twelve months. However, targeted attacks on individual companies and public institutions are rarely seen. It is dominated by widespread attacks, as well as the sending of spam e-mails. These facts are basic reasons why we should underscore the phrase – Protect Data in the Cloud.

Protect Data in the Cloud : Tips and Theories

Under Cloud environments, the company set up to operate on their own private cloud and therefore it is more secure than those of public cloud service providers. But, private clouds are clearly attacked more frequently than the infrastructure of providers. Especially, popular methods are vulnerability scans, attacks on web applications with SQL Injection and brute force attacks to bring passwords of the users and system administrators. One reason behind could be that cyber criminals are on the opinion that cloud computing data centers are protected by service providers has better security than the corporate networks and private cloud because of ‘feeling safe’.

The main elements of a cloud security approach are securing the infrastructure, protection of data, secure authentication and user authentication (Identity Management), and endpoint protection.

A cloud computing environment is characterized by decoupling of IT resources of the physical infrastructure by virtualization . Virtual machines with operating systems, applications and data can go almost at will in a cloud infrastructure – in the cloud or between a private and public clouds. In terms of safety, this means that IT security functions must be as flexible, at best, too. In the form of VMs In this case, for example, anti-virus and access control programs are implemented as virtual security appliances on the respective hosts.

To protect the infrastructure, i.e. hypervisor; application programming interfaces (API) can be used, for example, solutions like Symantec Protection Suite and VMware Shield, as well as software appliances such as Intel ESG. With the Intel Expressway Service Gateway (Formerly SOA Expressway), an administrator can monitor and manage cloud APIs. It is important to automate backup and execute central management tasks, such as patching, creating backups to implementing security rules and configuration.

The protection of business-critical data is a key element in a cloud environment. This applies to not only to the information stored on a server or storage system, but also for data transport, as from the corporate network to a cloud service provider. A key role in cloud environments is access control. Only authorized users and administrators should access data and applications in the cloud and it must be revoked with secure protocols like https.

For devices such as workstations, tablets , laptops and smartphones, which allows the access to users on a cloud computing environment, the same security requirements as in a conventional computing environment (Endpoint Security) – A current malware protection and frequent patching are required plus the need of abandoning known susceptible to virus, malware; Operating Systems like Microsoft Windows must be thought not to be allowed to access.