5 Reasons Your Business Is Safer in the Cloud

The concept of working from a PC in an office five days per week is ancient history. The global shift towards remote work has introduced more collaboration tools and, in turn, data protection and security risks to businesses of all kinds and sizes. However, the risk is more prominent in small- to medium-sized businesses where the cost of an attack can be a lot more devastating.

While cybercrime is a growing concern, keeping your business data secure goes beyond just protecting against hackers. It is also important to consider:

• Hardware failures
• Natural disasters
• Human error
• Insider threats
• Theft or loss of devices
• Software or application issues

Many think that storing business data locally on servers in their office is more secure than using a cloud-based solution. However, moving your business software and data to a reputable cloud solution actually provides a level of security that most small businesses simply don’t have the means, expertise, or focus to replicate.

Here are 5 reasons why storing your data in the cloud is more secure than keeping it on a server at the office:

1. Data Security Management

“Keeping employees updated on the latest security protocols and charging everyone in the organization with the task of keeping systems and data secure can be an around-the-clock task,” said Ronald van Loon, CEO and Principal Analyst of Intelligent World. “A cloud infrastructure, by contrast, integrates these functions to prioritize security measures and updates, taking that task off of employees’ plates.”

Cloud providers have large teams of cloud security experts whose primary responsibility is to protect their customers’ data. They are on top of the latest security threats, technologies, and best practices. After all, it is their full-time job to do so.

2. Higher Standards

Most organizations don’t follow good identity management practices for accounts, permissions, and passwords. Misconfigured permissions can make them more vulnerable to hackers who can gain access to sensitive data without being detected by IT teams. With the right cloud solution, the provider will have strict account provisioning and management processes that follow the principles of least privileged access.

3. Data Encryption

Encryption is an important layer of security that helps mitigate the impact of a breach by ensuring the bad actors can’t gain access to important information or de-encrypt any stolen files. Similarly, encrypting traffic in transit between networks helps ensure that attackers can’t eavesdrop on or intercept your data while it moves between servers.

4. Physical and Technical Monitoring

The biggest difference between business managing their own infrastructure and using a cloud provider is focus. Cloud providers can afford to pay for 24/7 security teams, strictly managed access controls, best in class solutions for disaster recovery, endpoint protection, centralized logging, and many other security capabilities that are simply not priorities for most businesses. Most importantly, cloud providers can afford to attract and retain expertise in cloud computing, security, and operations because it is their primary business focus.

5. Vulnerability and Patch Management

The majority of cyber-attacks are due to unpatched system vulnerabilities, which is not surprising because there have been more than 15,300 new security vulnerabilities registered in the first six months of 2023. Businesses with on-premise IT environments often have a person or team managing their systems; they simply can’t keep up with the influx of new vulnerabilities.

While security is just one of the many cloud benefits, it has topped the list of reasons why businesses invest in making the change. Very few businesses can afford to deploy the resources necessary to protect their business against these threats, so cloud providers can provide the support they need to stay secure.

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• Understanding the Differences Between Cloud, SaaS, and On-Premises Software Deployment