One Thing to Know When You Go to The Cloud
Updated: Jun 29, 2020
After seeing what the cloud offers - flexibility, elasticity, utility billing, reduced time to market - you’ve decided to make the leap and use it in your technology portfolio.
Perhaps you’re nervous about the massive exposure of your data living in someone else's data center. Or maybe you’re thinking that you can hardly keep up with your data protection requirements already, so how will you manage in the cloud?
Take a deep breath. There is one thing to know when you go to the cloud and we will get you quickly acquainted and caught up to speed with this.
An old friend: data protection
No matter where you keep your data - an onsite token vault, with a vendor, physical server under someone's desk, paper TPS report, in the cloud – your responsibility is to protect it.
The same mitigating principles you use with your current controls still apply to cloud-based data. You just need to baseline and extend them into your cloud environment. Which ones you use depend on the type of cloud you’re using (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS).
Regardless of which cloud you go with, keep your eye on risk. Ask how critical the data and operations are to your business and match that with your data protection level.
Protecting your data is different in the cloud
Now that you’re in the cloud, ask your cloud vendor specific questions on shared responsibility and what they cover in exposure to your data.
For instance, shared resources introduce risk related to multi-tenancy (i.e., guest hopping). If this type of threat pops up, what are your responsibilities to mitigate it? And what should your cloud vendor be doing?
Figure this out ahead of time - you don’t want anything to slip through the cracks.
Remember your cloud footprint could scale quickly when things take off in your business. Will your risk and controls program scale with it?
A lot of executives have already considered the tools and automation necessary to move to the cloud. However, to do so safely - and protect your data - you’ll need to take important additional steps as you get started in the cloud.
Want to know how? View our 6 steps to getting started in the cloud presentation and learn more. (Plus, you’ll learn about what an operating model based around the cloud really looks like.) If you enjoyed this topic and would like to discuss more contact us, our team of experts would be happy to chat with you.