Whether you run a workload in a private cloud, public cloud, or hybrid infrastructure, complying with data regulations is imperative to ensure your data security. Any subsequent breach of non-compliant data regulations can result in monetary losses and damaged brand authority. So, you can implement different techniques to achieve cloud data protection. These often include endpoint security, access control, encryption, and regular monitoring. 

In this guide, we will cover different aspects of cloud data protection to let you know more. 

Introduction to cloud data protection

Cloud data protection is all about practices used to secure a company’s data in the cloud. These practices secure data, whether in motion or at rest, where it is located, and whoever is managing it. As more and more businesses have switched to cloud infrastructure. Therefore, cloud data protection practices have become more important. 

According to a survey from 2018, about 73% of businesses had their data and applications in cloud infrastructure. 

Cloud data protection techniques help in protecting your data from loss, theft, and compromise. Although traditional data protection methods work amazingly for on-premise deployments. However, these will become complicated to use on cloud data. 

Cloud data protection can also accommodate various categories of data companies usually work with. These more often include: 

• Internal data of the company
• Public data
• Sensitive data 
• Customer social security numbers and more. 

Cloud data protection can secure data and applications across different platforms. These practices can also maintain data visibility in all file activities, users, and folders. Moreover, it can also benefit you in improved government access, better-defined policies, and data loss and disruption detection. 

How can data be protected in the cloud?

Different methods usually protect cloud data. These include cloud storage, backups, disaster recovery, etc. All these methods have been designed to keep data in the possession of an organization it belongs to. Data protection techniques help to secure data against data loss, malware breaches, or any threatening event that can exploit cloud data’s vulnerability. 

Access control, authentication, secure deletion, regular backup, etc., are key methods to enhance cloud data protection. However, these practices pertain more to data security than providing protection. Organizations keep these tactics to keep negligent and malicious uses at bay. 

Companies use standard security policies here when it’s about preventing data breaches. Practically, cloud workloads are vulnerable. Therefore, cloud service providers and companies must understand the partnership implications of minimizing data risk. Addressing this challenge, companies can benefit from the expertise of DataKnox’s IT asset management services, which not only aid in optimizing cloud infrastructure but also play a pivotal role in enhancing overall data security.

Reasons why cloud data protection is important for companies

Companies collect massive data amount. The data ranges from consumers’ personal information to highly sensitive financial and business data. Besides that, businesses are also moving a huge amount of data to cloud infrastructure. They are storing data in multiple places such as:

• Public cloud 
• Private cloud 
• Hybrid environment 
• SaaS applications 
• Cloud storage environment, etc. 

With that, companies have also discovered how difficult it is to protect their data across different environments. 

Cloud data protection is also a necessity for so many reasons. It becomes necessary for companies that adopt cloud services to ensure data protection. It is mainly because:

• Companies usually don’t know where their data and applications have stored. 
• Third-party services can also limit the visibility into data sharing and access. 
• At times, companies misunderstand or misapply the shared cloud responsibilities. 
• Security structure may become inconsistent if a company is using multiple cloud services. 
• Your data may be subject to various data protection regulations, such as GDPR in the EU, the CCPA, or HIPPA. To make your data policy compliant with these protection regulations, you must consider cloud data protection practices. 

Besides that, companies have been facing a host of security challenges. These include the potential for application vulnerabilities, theft or loss of sensitive data, malware propagation, and security breaches. 

Challenges in cloud data protection

You may face various challenges when setting up a cloud data protection policy. Some of the most common challenges include:

Data integrity 

Cloud systems need to ensure authorized access grants. Moreover, configurations should also reassure that data deletion and modification access is for appropriate users only. 

Confidentiality 

You must store your cloud data as per its confidentiality level. This can help in restricting permissions properly and applying encryptions accordingly. Likewise, you must protect admin credentials and passwords to maintain these restrictions. 

Locality 

Data restrictions are usually for physical data location based on where you have collected it and where you’ll use it. A distributed cloud system can make it harder to determine and control the locality of data. 

Consequently, designing a system to clearly define your data locality in the cloud is one of the biggest challenges. 

Storage 

Your vendor controls the entire cloud structure. It means companies have to rely on vendors for the ensured security of data centers, networks, infrastructures, and more. 

Best practices of cloud data protection 

Various organizations commonly forget to perform their due diligence while developing policies. This practice can add complications to the preliminary stages of these policies. So, you must know the best practices to become one of these businesses. 

However, here we have enlisted some of the key practices you must include in cloud data protection:

• You must take the protection of your sensitive data into account. This practice will benefit you while putting together a program. 
• Authentication alone can’t work amazingly for cloud data protection. So, you must pair this technique with encryption to ensure an added layer of security. 
• Last but not the least, always choose a reliable and trustworthy cloud vendor. Select the one that promises to secure your data and prevent unauthorized access. 
• Your chosen vendor must provide robust tools to enhance your data security in the cloud. 
• Choose strong credentials to restrict unauthorized users from accessing your data in the cloud. You must set strict credential policies and access permissions. 

These practices are imperative to protect your data from loss or theft. So, you must practice all these best practices to ensure strong data protection in the cloud.