What are the Security Risks of Cloud Computing?

Cloud security—also called cloud computing security—refers to the discipline and practice of protecting cloud computing environments, applications, data and information against unauthorized use/access, distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks, hackers, malware, and other risks.

Businesses and governments are shifting more and more data to the cloud. However, some organizations remain resistant to the cloud’s considerable attractions due to lingering concerns about data security and privacy.

What are the Principal Cloud Computing Security Considerations?

Loss of data

By its very nature, cloud computing involves some transfer of control from the “customer” to the service provider. While this leaves users more time and financial resources to focus on other facets of their business, there is always the risk that sensitive data is in someone
else’s hands. If the security of a cloud service is breached, hackers could potentially gain access to intellectual property or other confidential files.

Malware infections

Due to the high volume of data stored in the cloud and the reliance on an internet connection to store this data, any organisation using cloud services is potentially at risk of cyberattacks. An increasingly common threat is a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack, whereby hackers send unprecedented volumes of traffic to a web-based application, thereby crashing the servers.

Legal/compliance issues

With increasing legislation related to data protection including for example, GDPR in Europe and HIPAA in healthcare, staying compliant is becoming more challenging. Companies must have steadfast rules governing who can access data and what they can do with it. With cloud computing’s easy access to data on a large scale, it can be challenging to keep track of who can access this information.

How SPG Controls helps safeguard your data security in cloud computing

From providing scalable solutions to staying on top of the latest web security threats, SPG Controls Cloud Services offers a secure solution that safeguards resources and data.

1. Network Segmentation

In multi-tenant environments, SPG recommends segmentation is in place between Company and Customer resources , as well as between any instances. Leverage a zone approach, to isolate instances, containers, applications and full systems from each other when possible.
The functionality of the ARCO platform is broken down into components, a suite of small, narrowly focused, independently deployable services. Each microservice runs in its own process and communicates with HTTPS endpoints via the Web API. Those services are encapsulated for specific capabilities and are deployed independently using a fully automated mechanism.

2. Privileged Access Management

Leverage robust identity management and authentication processes to ensure only authorized users have access to the cloud environment, applications, and data.
ARCO Platform users are given a set of permissions from the collection of configurable roles. Roles are only allowed to access the information necessary to perform specific tasks effectively. Access can be based on several factors, such as authority, responsibility and job competency. In addition, access to the SPG ARCO Platform can be limited to specific tasks such as the ability to view, create or modify a device.

3. Password Control

Cloud services should be secured with a username and password, but there is always a risk that login credentials can be stolen and used to gain unauthorized access to cloud services and steal or modify data.

The ARCO Platform features a built-in password strength monitor to guide in creating secure passwords. Clients are passed a session token (Java Web Token), and every action that the user performs on the web session exchanges with this token.

4. High-Level Encryption

One of the major concerns of every business, regardless of size and industry, is the security of its data. Data breaches and other cybercrimes can devastate a company’s revenue, customer loyalty and brand positioning.
The ARCO Platform communicates with each component using wolfSSL. The wolfSSL library is a lightweight SSL/TLS library targeted for embedded, RTOS, and resource-constrained environments – primarily because of its small size, speed and feature set. It is used in many common platforms because the wolfSSL library supports over 30 different operating environments, industry standards up to the current TLS 1.3 library and offers progressive cyphers such as ChaCha20, Curve25519, NTRU, and Blake2b. User benchmarking and feedback report dramatically better performance when using wolfSSL versus other similar implementations of TLS.

5. Disaster Recovery

Data loss is a significant concern for all organizations, along with data security. Storing data in the cloud guarantees that data is always available, even if your equipment like laptops or PCs is damaged. Cloud-based services provide quick data recovery for all kinds of emergency scenarios, from natural disasters to power outages.

SPG Controls’ Cloud Services can help you with loss prevention. The ARCO Platform is a Docker container-based system designed to be distributed, redundant and scalable. The ARCO Platform can be run in a Docker Swarm container environment in a public or private cloud hosting environment, and support online or offline (air-gapped) installations.

Is migrating to SPG Controls Cloud Services best for you?

Not every company will migrate to the cloud, at least not yet. However, of organizations that adopt cloud services, many find the benefits positively impact their business.

Cloud adoption increases every year as companies realize it offers them access to world-class enterprise technology. And, if you implement a cloud solution now, you’ll be ahead of the competition.

If you have any questions about how to effectively adopt the cloud for your business, or how to optimize your cloud performance and reduce costs, contact us today to help you out with your performance and security needs.