Cloud Hosting

Cloud technology has taken over almost all the organizations networking arena, making an incredible influence in enabling mobility, security, and data safety. Even though the modern cloud security leverages top level encryption techniques, complete security is still a matter of debate. Today, the Cloud computing security techniques encompasses of various security policies as well as control-based technologies designed to adhere to regulatory compliance rules and protect data applications, information, and infrastructure associated with cloud.

Cloud computing security solutions are gaining a faster pace, providing many of the same functionalities as traditional IT security that includes protecting critical information from theft, data leakage and deletion. For a better understanding, take a look at some of the top cloud security concerns existing in the arena today.

Cloud software interfaces are not always trust worthy. The Cloud Security Alliance warns the users to be aware while using cloud interfaces, especially third party interfaces that interact with the cloud services. Depending on a weak set of interfaces and APIs exposes organizations to a variety of security issues related to the information confidentiality and integrity. In addition, it recommends learning the techniques that the cloud service provider uses to integrate security through its services from activity monitoring to user authentication and access control.

Encrypting the data when it is on the providers server, as well as when using the data stored in the cloud server are other important aspects that have to be considered in maintaining security. Various reports suggest that only a few cloud providers assure protection for data being used within the application. While selecting a service, it is important to ask potential cloud providers how they secure the user data not only when its in transit but also when its on their servers and accessed by the cloud-based applications. In addition, make sure that the service provider securely disposes all the data when not required.

All the data that travels within the network or between the organizations network and the cloud server must be encrypted. Especially, the data traffic between cloud and the organization should be passing through a secure channel for better safety. Make sure that when connecting to the provider the URL begins with HTTPSHypertext Transfer Protocol Secure the secure version of HTTP. Moreover, all the data should be authenticated and encrypted using standard protocols such as Internet Protocol Security (IPsec).

As in organizational environments, there are several users accessing the data stored in cloud, there should be personal access control techniques for ensuring safety. All the uses should be allowed access to only the data that the user needs and has to be categorized. Access should only be allowed based on user designations or the data sensitivity.

Cloud computing offers small to large businesses numerous benefits with data storage, and analytics. The CIOs should address cloud security issues with the service provider before entrusting data to the server and applications. For the best results, make sure that these security challenges are thwarted even from the first time the organization is connected to cloud.

Here is the original post:
Ensuring Cloud Security - CIOReview