As more businesses adopt cloud technologies, we’re seeing a rise in cloud computing threats. 2018 won’t be the exception.
While some of the threats are familiar, cybercriminals are constantly evolving their strategies. We recommend all businesses remain diligent with their security to reduce their risks.
Data Breaches
We know this might sound like old news, but data breaches aren’t stopping any time soon.
With so much data stored remotely in the cloud, hackers are working even harder to gain access to cloud data centers. From security flaws to phishing scams, a breach is always possible. As of May 9th, 2018, ITRC already has listed 425 data breaches spanning nearly 15 million records.
Ransomware In The Cloud
We already work to battle the threat of ransomware on business networks, but a new threat is ransomware in the cloud. It’s likely to be one of the hardest cloud computing threats to protect against in 2018. MIT is predicting this to be one of the top six cyber threats of the year. The Allscripts attack is just one example of what happens when a cloud provider is hit with ransomware.
General System Vulnerabilities
We love the fact that the cloud can be a more budget-friendly model, especially for smaller businesses. However, this often means sharing resources. As a result, cloud services are only as secure as their weakest link. If three businesses share the same server, but only two keep the systems up to date, they could still be vulnerable due to vulnerabilities from the third business’s software.
Of course, this also applies to simply maintaining system updates. No matter how secure a cloud service provider is, we can’t stress enough the importance of applying updates to reduce the risk of attack.
Misconfigurations
One of the biggest cloud computing threats of 2018 is also one of the easiest to prevent. A common problem we continue to see is misconfigurations in security settings. For instance, employees may have access to files they shouldn’t or a guest Wi-Fi user might have administrative privileges on the network. Even allowing employees to use simple passwords is enough to let hackers compromise networks and cloud services.
Facing cloud computing threats is daunting, but it doesn’t have to be. Contact our team today to find out how we can help protect against these threats.